THE CHAIRMAN: We have with us to-night MR. JOHN MURRAY CLARK, K. C., a member of the Bar of Toronto. I am sure it will be a pleasure to hear a voice from the other side of the line.

ARBITRATION NOW A MATTER OF WORLD POLITICS.

REMARKS OF MR. JOHN MURRAY CLARK.

Mr. Smiley, Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I wish first to thank Mr. Smiley most cordially for the great honor he has shown me in asking me to be present at this Conference, a privilege which I have enjoyed more than I can say. I desire also to thank you, ladies and gentlemen, very heartily for the flattering reception you have accorded me, though I am well aware that the friendliness of that reception was not due to myself individually, but to the kindly reference made by your Chairman to the fact that I was a Canadian, though, of course, I do not speak in any representative capacity.

I wish to express my hearty sympathy with the beneficent movement which is represented by this Conference and with the ideas which are promulgated here. This Conference has a widening and increasing influence not only in this great country of the United States, which my friend, who just spoke, described, whether justly or not I shall not say, as the most advanced nation in civilization, but also throughout the whole civilized world.

International arbitration has now become not merely a matter of interest to those nations which claim the leadership in civilization, but a matter of world politics. In fact, the weaker nations are even more interested in the progress of the movement for international arbitration than the so-called Great Powers.

One of your speakers mentioned that he had pointed out with justifiable pride to some European visitors to the United States that there was a great boundary of thousands of miles between Canada and the United States in connection with which there was no warship, to maintain which there were no forts and no guns. As far as warships are concerned, the matter is governed by the Treaty which stipulated that there should be no warships on the Great Lakes, etc.; but as regards the land boundary, the matter is governed by the good sense and justice of the two great peoples on either side of the boundary, and I think their good sense will always be a sufficient guarantee that the present happy state of affairs will continue. If this Conference does no more than to ensure its permanence, all its efforts will be more than fully repaid.

Another of your speakers referred to the feelings of respect with which he regarded your Supreme Court, of which we have a distinguished member with us. This respect is shared by me, is shared, I may say, very fully by every student of jurisprudence throughout the English-speaking world.

Among the many notable contributions which the United States

has made to the cause of International Arbitration, I think one of the greatest is its Supreme Court, which in certain respects may be regarded as a Court of International Arbitration. This becomes strikingly apparent when you recall the noble history of that Court and remember that at one time the original States were really nations, and that there was the greatest difficulty, as every student of American history knows, in constituting a supreme power and authority which could finally determine differences between those States which so jealously regarded their sovereign rights.

Reference has been made to the power of public opinion in enforcing the awards of international arbitrators, and to the fact pointed out so eloquently by Mr. Justice Brewer, that this public opinion has been powerful enough to ensure that every valid award made within the last hundred years has been fully observed, notwithstanding expressions of dissatisfaction. I well remember hearing expressions of dissatisfaction with some of these awards, but no suggestion that they should not be carried into effect, no suggestion of repudiation. Canadians, I think, would with few exceptions accept without hesitation a judicial decision by the Supreme Court of the United States on disputed legal questions as between the two countries, so great is their well-founded confidence in that Court. In fact, the dissatisfaction in Canada with the most recent of these awards, which of course I shall not discuss, was because the United States did not appoint members of your Supreme Court or jurists of that class as your representatives in the arbitral tribunal. I am, of course, not expressing any opinion as to the qualifications of the members of the tribunal referred to, and the point I desire to make is that even in that case there was no question of the award not being carried out. The analogy of ordinary legal decisions affords strong grounds for taking courage with reference to the question so ably discussed here by Mr. Justice Brewer, of enforcing the awards of arbitral tribunals, for originally there was no direct way of enforcing such decisions. The present methods of executing judgments appeared at a comparatively recent date in the history of our jurisprudence. Originally the only effect of a man's refusing to obey the decision of a court of law was that he became an outlaw and ceased to receive the protection of the laws.

In the case of the decisions of ordinary legal tribunals there has been a steady development of the means of enforcing decisions reaching the culmination which has been pointed out. Similarly we may reasonably believe and expect that an efficient method of enforcing the awards of arbitral tribunals will be evolved and meantime we may rely on developing a force of international public opinion which in itself shall be sufficient to compel all nations not only to submit differences to arbitration, but also to compel them to accept and carry out the decisions of arbitral tribunals to which such differences may be referred.

I shall not attempt, after the speeches you have heard, to discuss exhaustively any of the great questions propounded. I merely desire

to thank you and to express as a Canadian the feelings of goodwill which my countrymen entertain towards the great kindred people which are specially represented in this Conference. Canadians, as a rule, are heartily in favor of international arbitration. It may be said that this is because we have on our borders a mighty nation of over eighty millions, but the reason has no relation to the greatness of the United States. Canadians are in favor of international arbitration, not because of any sense of weakness, for we are proud to be part of a mighty empire of over four hundred millions, but because we believe in justice, in the advance of civilization and in the substitution of reason for force. I am not disputing for a moment what has been said as to the greatness of the American people because to a very large extent I agree with what was said. In fact, no one who has read American history and the wonderful record of your marvelous development can fail to appreciate the immense possibilities which are before you as a people. I was glad, therefore, to gather from the expressions of those who wield legislative power in your country, that it is fully realized that all this greatness imposes upon you a corresponding responsibility that your great and increasing power, your great and increasing influence as a world-power, will be forever exercised in the promotion of the noble cause of international arbitration as a means of advancing the civilization of the world.

The Chairman then introduced MR. JOHN B. CLARK, Professor of Political Economy in Columbia University, New York, and author of "The Philosophy of Wealth" and other books on economic subjects.

POWERFUL AGENCIES WORKING FOR THE PEACE OF THE WORLD.

ADDRESS OF PROF. JOHN B. CLARK.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: Watching the progress of that clock, I hoped I was going to escape, and I can give you a promise that I will let you escape very soon. I hesitate to call your attention to anything so traditionally dry as a truth of the so-called dismal science, yet that is the only thing I can talk about, and it becomes my duty, if not so much my privilege at this late hour, to remind you that the cause for which we are working has some very powerful agencies working for it.

Although we were once appalled by the very magnificence of our aims, what we are trying to do is in reality much more modest than what many reformers are trying to do; for in order to succeed it is not necessary for us to overcome and subordinate the materialistic forces that are at work in the world. We have not the necessity upon us of raising idealism and enthusiasm to its utmost power and subjecting self-interest and all the sordid things of the earth in order that our cause may triumph. On the contrary, the greater

material interests are on our side and are working for us so powerfully and coöperating with the higher motives so effectually that we ought to expect a rather early triumph of our cause. While many another cause is the subject of doubtful warfare; while business is still dishonest and politics corrupt, and while human nature is what it is, with a full and melancholy measure of depravity in it, we shall witness the coming not of an earthly paradise, but of an imperfect state of growing civilization in which the judicial combats to which the nations resort in order to settle points of justice shall be things of the past. We shall settle our differences by a court under a law.

Now, in the earlier conferences which it has been occasionally my pleasure to address, I have endeavored to present the view of an economist as to what would naturally compose the various steps of approach to that consummation, and I shall not try to repeat that at the present time, though some things have recently happened which I should like to dwell upon more than at this late hour I shall have the heart to dwell upon anything. Commerce does much to bind the nations together. The growth of capital and the ignoring of national boundaries in the investment of capital do much, and the world-wide extent of the operations of the great corporations does much. A thousand things that I cannot touch upon are causing the earth to take the shape of a limitless economic organism in which the lines that separate different states from each other are gradually fading. They will remain as lines for certain purposes, but they will not sharply divide the material interests of humanity; and as those interests draw us closer and closer together and create in the world at large an organism akin to that which exists in the case of every separate nation, the necessity for a mechanism which shall avoid the disruption of that organism will become more and more pressing.

It is worth while, I think, to take account of the amount of progress that we have made up to a very recent date, and then, possibly, I may venture to give a brief account of the amazing progress that has been made within a very few days. I refer to the coming of what I consider the fairer prospect of peace over the great continent of Asia, and in Europe and America in consequence of their relations to Asia, by means of something that has been accomplished not with fair words, but with a stupendously big stick. We may consider that we have reached a point where aggressive movements between civilized nations aiming to rob one another of territory are things of the past. We have some right to conclude that insults injuries to national honor-if not completely things of the past, will be comparatively rare in the future and will not take the dimensions which will necessitate war.

In the relations of Europe and America to the remainder of the world there is the danger of hostile actions. We have undervalued the wars that arise in that way and have been taught a lesson in that connection. The graver complications which European nations have recently had with each other have come from their several relations to those other portions of the world which they do not regard as en

coast.

titled to the protection of international law. Attempts at aggression have recently been tried in the territory which has the capacity for furnishing more dangerous issues than any other portion of the world, - the great continent of Asia. Most of this continent, while not entirely unprotected by international law, has not been within the full scope of its action. From this time on Asia is more fully under the protection of that law, and an economist could not do otherwise than regard as, from his point of view, the most decisive contest of modern times the naval battle that has recently taken place off the Asiatic Not merely is it a peace making measure, in the sense that it creates a strong inducement for stopping this present war, but it brings about a state of affairs in which the most dangerous complications that we know anything about are in a fair way of being permanently removed. The twenty or more great ships that have found their way to the bottom of the sea ought to represent and probably will represent the very last forcible effort to subordinate Asia completely to European interests [applause], and those which fought on the other side and are now afloat and triumphant attest with equal emphasis the fact that Asia has rights of its own, a disposition to assert them and power to defend them. It means that there will be an economic development in Asia which never could have come as quickly and successfully under any other set of conditions. What lately seemed possible, if not imminent, was the dismemberment of the great Chinese empire and the subordination of it to European policies. There had commenced an exploitation of a portion of it, on the south by one European nation a very good one; on the east by two nations - good ones also; on the north by a very great nation - good, I suppose, if we bar some of its governing elements; and every one of those steps of aggression would have meant the subordination of an enormous area with a teeming population to the policy of some other country. At present, if we do not have in full measure what is called Asia for the Asiatics, we shall have Asia for herself and for the world; we shall have Asia as a great and independent power developing along economic lines under the brilliant leadership of Japan. It will develop more rapidly, it will assimilate to itself western civilization more quickly, brilliantly and completely under that leadership than under any other that it is possible to suggest. Under its independent government, if left wholly to itself, it would still stagnate, as it must do under a policy which involves the exclusion of all foreign economic influence. Under the friendly leadership of Japan, it is likely to have a rapid development. A brilliant Chinese politician once asked a foreigner: "Why do you wish to wake us up? If you wake us up, we shall go fast and we shall go far - farther than you wish!" Not farther than all sound and generous minds will wish. As Americans we can afford to take the lead in welcoming that portion of Asia and Asia as a whole to the grand family of nations, to bid it come into that family on equal terms, and pursue its own independent development both economic and political.

The Conference then adjourned till 10 o'clock Thursday morning.