Advocate of Peace. PAGE 1-5 6-10 10-11 Another Treaty of Arbitration. The best piece of public news which Christmas It had been known ever since the signing of the The text of the treaty is reported to be identical This treaty, as is readily seen, constitutes another No. 1 arbitration movement. If it is the first step that All We shall soon hear of other agreements of the From this point of view, the new year opens cer- The President's Message and Arbitration. President Roosevelt, in his message to Congress "A demand was then made by the so-called blockad- "During the efforts to adjust this dispute it was sug- It has been universally acknowledged that the course which the President took in this matter was most wise and honorable, and that it would certainly greatly advance recognition by the nations generally of what he so felicitously calls "that august tribunal of peace." Of the beneficent results of the appearance of so many nations at one time before the new tribunal of the world he speaks in enthusiastic, but none too emphatic, terms: "Our hopes in that regard have been realized. Russia and Austria are represented in the persons of the learned and distinguished jurists who compose the tribunal, while Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway, Mexico, the United States and Venezuela are represented by their respective agents and counsel. "Such an imposingconcourse of nations presenting their arguments to and invoking the decision of that high court of international justice and international peace can hardly fail to secure a like submission of many future controversies. The nations now appearing there will find it far easier to appear there a second time, while no nation can imagine its just pride will be lessened by following the example now presented. This triumph of the principle of international arbitration is a subject of warm congratulation and offers a happy augury for the peace of the world.” On the general principle of arbitration as a substitute for war the President goes nearly as far as any except the most advanced advocates of this pacific method. He says: "There seems good ground for the belief that there has been a real growth among the civilized nations of a sentiment which will permit a gradual substitution of other methods than the method of war in the settlement of disputes. "It is not pretended that as yet we are near a position in which it will be possible wholly to prevent war, or that a just regard for national interest and honor will in all cases permit of the settlement of international disputes by arbitration; but by a mixture of prudence and firmness with wisdom we think it is possible to do away with much of the provocation and excuse for war, and at least in many cases to substitute some other and more rational method for the settlement. of disputes. The Hague Court offers so good an example of what can be done in the direction of such settlement that it should be encouraged in every way. Further steps should be taken." The President still leaves a place for war, but it is a much smaller one than he and other responsible heads of governments have usually felt to be necessary. He concedes freely that there are "more rational methods for the settlement of disputes than war. The Hague Court "should be encouraged in every way." What he means by "Further steps should be taken," we can only surmise, but we suspect he has reference to the negotiation of general treaties of obligatory arbitration, such as that recently signed between France and Great Britain. On the whole, the President's treatment of this great subject is most satisfactory, and eminently worthy of him and of the country. The Rapprochement Between France and Great Britain. Altogether the most hopeful augury in current international affairs is the rapprochement now consummating itself so rapidly between France and Great Britain. This rapprochement is the more striking because it is between two powerful peoples which are not only of different race and language, but have been historically the most open and thorough-going rivals and enemies. Their mutual history until in recent times was one of almost perpetual quarreling and bloodshed. For nearly seven hundred years, from the middle of the twelfth century up to 1815, they spent one year out of every three in fighting. It would be impossible to reckon up the destruction of life, the woes, the material desolations, the financial losses, and the infinite moral damages of the great AngloFrench campaigns of these centuries, in which they spent their strength and resources trying to make the conquest of each other's lands or to inflict upon each other defeat and humiliation. The wounds of these campaigns have been deep and hard to cure. One It has not been many years since the spirit of recrimination and revenge entailed by these former conflicts was rife on both sides of the channel. heard abuse and misrepresentation everywhere both in private and in public circles. Rumors and threats of open hostilities filled the columns of the daily papers of both countries. War was barely averted in the late fifties in the time of Napoleon III. No longer ago than the Fashoda incident, the old fires suddenly flamed up, and the fleets and armies of both countries were hurriedly put into readiness for action. The change that has at last come, in which cordial friendship and generous appreciation are taking the place of the former distrust and defamation, is little less than a political miracle. The transformation is of course not yet complete and it may be many years. before it is so. But the manner in which the rapprochement is now expressing itself, not only through the arbitration treaty recently signed, but in many other ways, makes any serious return to the old conditions under present circumstances practically impossible. It must not be supposed, however, that the coming together of the two nations, just now manifesting it self so remarkably, is a sudden and unprepared phenomenon. If it were so, no confidence could be placed in its permanence. It has its roots far back in the past century. Ever since the days of the overthrow. of the first Napoleon, intercourse between the two peoples, along both social and commercial lines, has been steadily growing. It could not be avoided. The forces of attraction and coöperation were powerfully active on both sides of the channel in spite of the hatred and abuse which still remains. To the Cobden Commercial Treaty of 1860, and the groups of men who secured it, perhaps as much as to any single set of influences, has been due the breaking down of the old walls of exclusiveness between the two peoples. This treaty, one of the greatest accomplishments ever effected by pacific diplomacy, made at a time when suspicion and ill will had gone to ruinous lengths, has for forty years been exercising its powerful influence for Anglo-French friendship and good understanding. It has shown them in conIt has shown them in considerable measure that the commercial and industrial interests of the two peoples run very close together; and when this is once done, political misunderstandings are sure soon to break down. Again, the absence of actual war for so long a period has given the constructive forces of civilization opportunity to work measurably untrammeled, in their natural way, in weaving the lives of the two peoples together. It has been more than eighty years since the two countries were at war. The period of actual fighting between them ended with Waterloo in 1815. The fires of hatred and revenge have therefore had time to die away, while the continuous daily intermingling of the two peoples in all sorts of ways has built them together into a strong practical fellowship, with which sentimental dislike has not been able seriously to interfere. What direful results a recent war between them would have wrought may be easily judged from the case of Germany and France. Between these powers the feelings of revenge and of contemptuous fear left by the struggle of 1870 have only just now begun to yield after a third of a century, and years must yet pass, doubtless, before an arbitration treaty between them, like that just entered into by the French and English governments, can even be hopefully talked of. A remarkable feature of this rapprochement between France and England is its genuineness, its freedom from sentimental pretense. In this respect it differs widely from most of the ententes cordiales of which we hear so much from time to time. These "cordial understandings" are usually the product of some political necessity, when a government feels itself sadly in need of an ally, or desires support in the carrying out of some disreputable enterprise. These ententes usually last only till the emergency which created them has passed, and then the nations fall apart to seek new connections as occasion may require. In the case before us there seems to be no tinge of unworthy motive. The movement is in reality not a political one at all, and it is very doubtful if its value would be increased by a formal alliance, as suggested by Mr. de Pressensé's recent report to the Chamber on international affairs. It is a people's movement on both sides of the channel, and has gradually deepened and widened until the governments have felt themselves obliged to take cognizance of it. of it. It is gratifying to know that the government leaders have done this willingly and sympathetically, but it is after all its basis in the sentiments and wishes of the people, as voiced by a number of distinguished leaders in both countries, which gives to the rapprochement its strength and its certainty to endure. As the period of actual war between these two great and powerful nations came to an end with the fall of Napoleon I., so there is strong ground for believing that the arbitration treaty, which is the last and highest political expression of their growing friendship, will prove to be the beginning of the end of the unworthy distrust and recrimination which have so often disturbed their relations and threatened their peace, almost to the opening of this twentieth century. This at any rate ought to be so. Germany and South America. It is high time that the masses of the American people of all classes should do a good deal of serious and careful thinking about the relations of this country to Germany in respect to South America. The reported remark of General MacArthur recently at Honolulu, that Germany will go to war with the United States in the near future, and that the Pacific will be the early field of hostilities, with Hawaii as the first point of attack, whether he uttered the sentiment or not, represents a considerable and very dangerous current of opinion which is frequently breaking out here and there not only at military dinners but elsewhere. Recently Professor Small, head of the Department. of Sociology of Chicago University, just home from Europe, is reported to have declared, in a most oracular way, that Germany is going to fight us in the near future for the commercial supremacy which she feels that she is in great peril of missing, and that the United States, if mindful of her interest, will begin at once to prepare for the inevitable struggle. The professor even exhorts the peace societies, doubtless. in jest, to throw all their strength in favor of a large increase of the United States navy, as the only efficient means of ensuring peace with the Kaiser. Notwithstanding the fact that we have for several years been treated to these lugubrious prophecies, not one of which has deigned to get itself fulfilled, yet on each new occasion talk of this kind is indulged in as if the speaker had received a fresh and oracular message from some hidden source, inaccessible to the rest of us, which made him sure that the prediction was on the very eve of fulfillment. And so fond are the people of the thrilling sensations produced by these cries of alarm that they straightway forget the many times that the predictions have proved to be wholly groundless and false. In the case of the small group of army and navy officers and officials who contribute most of the coming-war prophets - not all of them, of course, are of this class the cause of their declarations is not far to seek. They feel the necessity of "magnifying their office." Why have an army and a navy if we are not to have a war "some time," as Secretary Root has declared that we certainly shall have? These men are unwilling to have their "business" fall behind the general advance of things. They wish the annual reports to make a good showing. The reported remark of General MacArthur, which proves "not to have been made for publication, but spoken among friends in private," was suspiciously related to his wish to have the fortifications of the Hawaiian islands forthwith enlarged and strengthened. How get the large sums of money for these "improvements" if the old works were not in immediate danger of being viciously hammered by an enemy's guns? The guns had to be supplied, therefore, and the bigger the better. They were the missing link in the argument. A reason for the "dark saying" of the Chicago University professor of sociology and his like is much more difficult to imagine. They certainly do not want a war with Germany in the interests of the sociological development of human society or of the advancement of sociological study in the great centres of learning. We insist that this whole South America-Germany-United States problem ought to be thought out with great care by the people of the country before they allow themselves to be led any further astray by these militarizing prophets of hostile foreign designs against us. If our country is not attacked from abroad until it is attacked by Germany from the side of the Pacific, where her fleet would be so many thousands of miles away from home and from any effective base of supplies, we shall remain undisturbed "to the ages of the ages." The Germans may be pushing and ambitious from both the military and the commercial point of view, but they are not so utterly hollowheaded as a scheme like this would prove them to be. The likelihood of their making a descent upon any part of our Atlantic coast is from the military standpoint just as improbable. Such an attack would be foredoomed to utter failure even if the German fleet outnumbered that of this country three to one. As to commercial supremacy, Germany, like the United States, has her ambitions, but she knows perfectly well that commercial superiority comes only along the line of the steady and efficient development of her products and of wisdom and persistence in her mercantile and trading classes. She understands that the nation that excels in these can never be driven from the field, and that the one who does not lead in these cannot, by the power of any number of warships or military successes, ever be first, in these days of such large international commercial freedom. Nothing in her would show such enormous folly as a deliberate attack of arms upon the United States in the interests of the expansion of her commerce. For if she succeeded in the military enterprise, an impossible supposition, that would not give the least assurance of success in the other, especially as she would have crippled one of her best customers. Furthermore, all the paths of commercial success are already open to her, and she has been taking great strides in them in recent years, not because of, but in spite of, her great armaments. Why should she abandon the policy of peaceful economic and commercial development, through which she has made such remarkable advancement, and launch upon the perilous policy of war, where she would be staking all with nothing to gain over what is already within her reach? There is not one chance in ten thousand that she will ever attempt to do this unless she is nagged to madness by foreign misrepresentation and falsehood. As to her course in South America, though some friction has occurred between the Germans settled there and the native citizens, there has not hitherto been a thing in it to arouse our distrust or dislike. There is not a grain of evidence that she has ever contemplated seizing territory there and setting up a German colonial government. There have been no open or secret threats to do this, and time and again her government has disclaimed any intention of doing How shall we judge of her future course except by her past? So. It is true that large numbers of Germans have been for years emigrating to Brazil and other South American countries. But this ought not to disturb us. They have a right to go. We ought to rejoice in it. They are contributing largely to the development and civilization of the country. We should be glad to see enough of them go to double or treble the population of Brazil or any other of the republics. It would not be a bad thing if they should become numerous enough to outvote the rest of the population, as may easily be the case some day, and get control of the national parliaments, the judiciaries, and even the presidencies. They have a per fect right to do this, so long as they do it in a peaceful and orderly way, just as our own or any other people have the right to do. If we want war with Germany, if we desire to see the German colony in Southern Brazil revolt and set up the standard of the Fatherland, if we wish to promote the growth of Pan-Germanism and unify it into a grasping world-organization strong enough to strike us and our commerce a disastrous blow, let us by all means at once increase the number of our alarmist Germanophobes and keep them continually talking war. Germany is not a nation to be scared off the sea by the mere talk of big fleets or by the fleets themselves. Challenges will only make her the more bold and aggressive. But if we wish to have her friendship and her coöperation in advancing the higher interests of humanity, let us have the good sense to abstain from provoking her by the everlasting imputation of bad motives, and let us frankly assist her in making her commerce as extensive and prosperous as possible. In this way we shall render both our commerce and our peace much more secure than if we stupidly provoked her to dispute with us by arms both our commercial and our political power. arbitration to consist not chiefly in the nature of the question to be decided, though this he does not underrate, but in the fact that it will" increase the dignity and enlarge the usefulness of the great Court of Peace," that it will extend more fully the reign of law and justice in the relations of the European nations to the South American republics, prevent aggression and violence against them, and thus contribute very materially to the pacific development of Central and South America. If this is a true interpretation, or marks out the line of a true interpretation, of the value of this arbitration, as we are inclined to think it does, then the conclusion is inevitable that the Hague Court, through the action of the ten signatory powers in appearing before its bar with an outside power on terms of equality, is now finally open to all the nations of Central and South America, and indeed of all the world. Any one of them may ask any signatory government, or any other with which it may have a controversy, to go to The Hague for settlement, with reasonable assurance that no technical advantage will be taken of the fact that it is not yet a party to the convention in order to exclude it from a hearing before this great tribunal. It is true that the Venezuela arbitration is only a Is the Hague Court now Open to All the single case; but it is a case of such character, be Nations of the World? There is one fact connected with the appearance of Venezuela before the Hague Court, in the preferential treatment case, that is of the greatest significance, but has as yet received practically no attention. This fact is brought out strongly though somewhat indirectly in the instructive article by Hon. Wayne MacVeagh in the December North American Review on "The Value of the Venezuela Arbitration." It will be remembered that Venezuela is not a party to the Hague Convention, and has no representatives in the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The Convention is what is ordinarily considered a closed convention, to which others may be admitted only at the will of the signatory powers. None of the South American States, though a treaty of adherence to the Hague Conventions was signed by their representatives at Mexico City, have as yet been admitted as parties to the Conventions. The appearance of Venezuela, therefore, before the Court, in company with ten of the powers-five of them powers of the first rank which are parties to the Convention under which it was established, is of extraordinary interest. She had no technical right to appear at the bar of the tribunal. The signatory powers might have refused to let her come. The fact that they allowed her to do so, raising, so far as we remember, no objections whatever, is certain to have far-reaching consequences. Mr. Mac Veagh considers the value of the Venezuela cause of the number of nations taking part in it, as will go a long way to establish a precedent which it will not be easy hereafter to set aside. It will be difficult ever again to close the tribunal to any appellant whatever. The opening of the Court in this indirect way to the whole family of nations means even more than if it had occurred in a formal and technical way, as will doubtless be the case in any event before many years. This extension of the sphere of the Permanent International Court in this way without any formal action is in harmony with the manner in which law and the institutions of law have always spontaneously extended themselves so as to cover new and contiguous ground. It is, furthermore, an impressive evidence of the increasing power of the sense of justice and equity in the international sphere where heretofore brutal violence and lawlessness have held such large sway. It is at bottom this enlarged sense of justice and right which is bringing the new World Court into such rapid use, and will in a comparatively brief period extend its authority and beneficent influence, not only theoretically, but also actually, over the whole sphere of international activities. As we go to press war and peace are hanging in the balance in the Far East, and it is uncertain which end of the scales will go down. We are not yet without hope that a peaceful solution will be reached, though one can almost hear already the death-angel beating his ponderous wings over the ill-fated scene. |