Hague Conference," and in this instance the two addresses were so careful, thorough, and so expressive of the opinions of the audience that they were accepted as final statements without discussion or comment. Gen. Horace Porter treated the work of the Second Conference sympathetically and with the detail to be expected from one who had himself played a great and leading part in the conference. Mr. R. C. Smith, K. C., of the Montreal bar, read the second paper and by his presence emphasized the international character of the Society as well as the belief of the enlightened that the Second Hague Conference deserves well of the community of nations. The Saturday morning session, with General Porter in the chair, dealt with the problem of the codification of international law, its desirability and its progress. Prof. George G. Wilson, of Brown University, presented an able and instructive paper on the work of the Naval War College in the codification of maritime international law, and was followed by Jackson H. Ralston, who spoke of the need of a code of international law for the purpose of mixed commissions and international tribunals which have to deal with vexed and doubtful points submitted for their consideration. The afternoon session was presided over by Professor Wilson and was devoted to the consideration of the organization, jurisdiction, and procedure of an international court of prize. The Society was fortunate on this occasion to have the advisability of an international court of prize presented to its consideration by a former justice of the Supreme Court, the Hon. Henry B. Brown, who by years of experience on the bench has a first-hand familiarity with the difficult questions of prize law. While stating that certain provisions of the proposed court were open to technical, perhaps constitutional, objection, he nevertheless hailed the prize court as a great and genuine advance and stated that the Second Hague Conference would have justified its calling if it had done nothing more than elaborate the project for the establishment of an international court of prize. On behalf of the admiralty bar Harrington Putnam, esq., of New York City, spoke in behalf of the court. The discussion closed with a few words by Mr. James Brown Scott, regarding the importance of the proposed court. At the annual business meeting, Prof. Louis Renault, Professor of International Law at the Paris Law School and the School of Political Sciences, was elected honorary member of the Society, and the following officers were chosen for the ensuing year: EXECUTIVE COUNCIL Chandler P. Anderson, Esq., New Charles Henry Butler, Esq., District Hon. Jacob M. Dickinson, Illinois Robert Lansing, Esq., New York Prof. James Brown Scott, Dis- TO SERVE UNTIL 1910 Hon. James B. Angell, Michigan Prof. Leo. S. Rowe, Pennsylvania Hon. Shelby M. Cullom, Illinois TO SERVE UNTIL 1911 Hon. Richard Bartholdt, Missouri Prof. Charles Noble Gregory, Iowa Charles B. Warren, Esq., Michigan Hon. John Sharp Williams, Mississippi Prof. Theodore S. Woolsey, Connecticut. On Friday afternoon, at 2.30, the President of the United States, attended by the president of the Society, the Hon. Elihu Root, and the Secretary of War, the Hon. William H. Taft, received the members in attendance at the meeting, and on Saturday evening, at 7 o'clock, the second annual meeting was closed with a banquet at the New Willard Hotel, where one hundred and eleven of the members and guests gathered together The president of the Society presided as toastmaster, and addresses were delivered by the Hon. Oscar S. Straus, Secretary of Commerce and Labor, vice-president of the Society and chairman of the Executive Committee; Gen. Horace Porter, vice-president of the Society; the Reverend Bishop O'Connell, rector of the Catholic University of America; R. C. Smith, K. C., of Montreal, Canada; and the Hon. David. J. Brewer, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and vicepresident of the Society. THE PENNSYLVANIA ARBITRATION AND PEACE CONFERENCE On May 16 to 19, 1908, a notable conference on arbitration and peace was held in the city of Philadelphia. Its objects, as stated in the published program, were: First. To promote the universal acceptance of the principles of international arbitration, and the establishment of permanent courts of justice for the nations, as the only practical means to ensure the blessings of peace by making wars improbable, and ultimately impossible, in the civilized world. Second. To give the people of Pennsylvania an opportunity to commend the splendid record of the United States with regard to arbitration, and to pledge their active and earnest support to every effort of our government to continue the work and to carry out the recommendations of the great Hague Conference of 1907. Third. To form and provide for an effective representation of public sentiment upon the great issues making for international friendship and world organization that should signalize the Third Hague Conference. Six sessions of the conference were held, besides the banquet on Tuesday evening and a series of meetings held on Sunday in the various churches in the city. Hon. Philander C. Knox, Senator of Pennsylvania, was president of the conference. Among the notable men who took part were Hon. David J. Brewer, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; Hon. William P. Potter, Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania; Hon. Edwin S. Stuart, Governor of Pennsylvania; Hon. William Jen nings Bryan, of Nebraska; Hon. William L. Penfield, former Solicitor of the Department of State, counsel for the United States in the Pious Fund Cases, and agent for the United States in the Venezuelan Arbitration Cases at The Hague in 1903; Dr. James Brown Scott, Solicitor, Department of State, Washington, D. C., technical delegate of the United States to the Second Hague Conference; Jackson H. Ralston, esq., Washington, D. C., umpire of the Italian Commission in the Venezuelan Arbitration Cases, and agent for the United States in the Pious Fund Cases; Charles C. Harrison, provost of the University of Pennsylvania; Hon. Wayne MacVeagh, Philadelphia, former Attorney-General of the United States; Hon. Richard Bartholdt, member of Congress from Missouri, president of the United States group of the Interparliamentary Union; Benjamin F. Trueblood, LL.D., secretary of the American Peace Society; and Edwin D. Mead, esq., Boston, vice-president of the American Peace Society. Many of the addresses which were delivered were valuable contributions to the literature of the arbitration movement; they were much more technical and scientific in character than addresses at such conferences usually are. The proceedings themselves were a demonstration of the fact that the arbitration movement is rapidly advancing from an ideal and theoretical to a practical and scientific stage in which lawyers skilled in international law must have a controlling part. Some of the addresses are worthy of special mention. At the great meeting on Monday evening, at the Academy of Music, Dr. Scott presented a paper, discussing the need of an international. court of justice. Following closely the argument which he delivered before the Second Peace Conference at The Hague on the same subject, he pointed out the defects of the present system of international arbitration, and quoted Mr. Root's words that "what we need for the further development of arbitration is the substitution of judicial action. for diplomatic action; the substitution of a judicial sense of responsibility for a diplomatic sense of responsibility." Dr. Scott then considered the character of the judges who should sit in the international court, the jurisdiction which it should exercise, and the manner in which it should be constituted. The topic last mentioned was of special interest, because of the entire failure of the Second Peace Conference at The Hague to deal with it successfully. Starting upon the assumption that all sovereign states are juridically equal, he pointed out that, considered from the standpoint of material interests, they are very unequal; that there is "a sensible relation between population, wealth, and industry, on the one hand, and lawsuits on the other;" and that as the large nations will have more disputes to settle, and therefore more interest in the decisions of the court, they should have a larger representation upon it. Without attempting a solution of the method of distributing the judges among the various nations, he suggests that fifteen or sixteen would be a proper number, pointing out that these judges should be so selected as to be trained in the various systems of law of the world. Mention should also be made of the excellent paper presented by Jackson H. Ralston, esq., of the Washington bar, in which he took the strong position, supporting it by able argument, that no disputes-not even those said to involve the vital interests, honor, or independence of the nations should be reserved from arbitration. Attention should also be called to the exceedingly able address of Judge Penfield upon international courts of justice. His paper was a comprehensive review of the history of international courts of justice and a discussion of their present status and possible future. The other addresses were by no means without interest, but, with the exception of one discussing the constitutionality of the proposed international prize court, published elsewhere in this number, they were not of a technical nature and are therefore of less interest to the readers of this JOURNAL. The resolutions adopted by this conference show the very intelligent and advanced position which it took on several subjects. The resolutions follow: 1. We express our profound satisfaction in the long record of the United States as an advocate of international arbitration, and in the great number of cases in which it has secured an honorable settlement of serious difficulties without a resort to war. We especially commend the admirable course of our Government at the Second International Peace Conference at The Hague, and pledge our active and cordial support to every effort to fulfill the recommendations of that conference. There are no other means by which our nation can render so great a service to humanity, or do so much for the moral development and material prosperity of its own citizens. 2. The difficulties which have hitherto prevented a general agreement for the limitation of national armaments should not be permitted to obscure the plain reasonableness and imperative necessity for further efforts in that direction. Modern conditions have made it impossible for any of the leading nations to add materially to their relative military or naval strength, because every addition to the fighting force of one country leads at once to a corresponding increase in the other countries, and these secondary increases are made to serve in their turn as conclusive arguments for still greater and still more injurious and demoralizing |