embodying the progress already made. This committee was composed of M. Bourgeois and M. Nelidow of Russia, the president of the conference, whose task was to "make known to the world," in the words of M. Bourgeois, "that the cause of obligatory arbitration issued from the Second Peace Conference victorious and not vanquished." It performed its task by reporting that

The commission is unanimous, first, in recognizing the principle of obligatory arbitration; second, in declaring that certain differences, and especially those relating to the interpretation and application of international treaties, are capable of being submitted to obligatory arbitration without any restriction whatever.

The commission adopted this report by a unanimous vote, except that the delegations of the United States, Haiti, Japan, and Turkey abstained. In a subsequent plenary session of the conference the report was adopted by a vote of forty-one ayes and three abstentions (Japan, Turkey, and the United States). The Japanese delegation stated its reason for abstention from this vote to be the fact that it had taken no part in the discussion of the question; the Turkish delegation alleged "lack of instructions" to be the reason for its abstention; and the United States delegation was opposed to the adoption of the report, although it abstained from casting a negative vote, for the reason, as stated by Mr. Choate, that "it is a surrender by the commission of the advanced position which, by a vote so decisive, it has already attained and not because we are not in favor of the principle of obligatory arbitration, for that is what we have striven for from the beginning."

The principle of obligatory arbitration, then, was endorsed unanimously (except for Japan and Turkey) by all the governments of the civilized world assembled in the Second Peace Conference; the application of this principle in a general treaty received a threefourths vote; and although a general treaty for either inclusive or exclusive obligatory arbitration failed of adoption by unanimous vote, the opposition to it was based, by its German and Austrian leaders, on the repeatedly expressed and strongly emphasized reason that such treaty might injure the progress of obligatory arbitration by means of separate treaties, of which they avowed themselves ardent advocates.

The practice of obligatory arbitration received, indirectly but undoubtedly, a great impulse from the Second Conference in its adoption of arbitration for the collection of contractual debts, and in its establishment of the International Prize Court.

It is true that the German and Austrian delegations, while supporting the Porter proposition throughout its discussion, denied that they were thereby supporting the cause of obligatory arbitration in a world treaty; but the representatives of France and Portugal openly welcomed the proposition for the reason that it was a shining example of that kind of arbitration. It is true, also, that the delegations of Roumania, Switzerland, and Turkey at first opposed the Porter proposition lest it should be placed in the convention for the peaceful settlement of international differences, in association with the articles relating to arbitration, and thus be officially stamped as an example of obligatory arbitration; but General Porter, in wisely consenting that his proposition be made the subject of a separate convention, and thereby allaying that particular kind of opposition, could well afford to forego a name for the sake of securing a substantial victory a victory which was not only one of the crowning glories of the Second Conference, but was won, in spite of diplomatic disguise on the part of its friends and in spite of vehement denial and self-deception on the part of its would-be enemies, within the field of obligatory arbitration. The International Prize Court, although designed merely " to permit an appeal" in prize cases from national tribunals to an international court, is another decided step in the obligatory arbitration of a certain class of international differences. It is more than this; for it lifts this class of differences above even obligatory arbitration, and subjects them to a virtual court of justice. As the first truly organized international court in the history of the world, it is quite explicable that Sir Edward Fry should have hailed it as the most remarkable of all the measures adopted by the conference; and as largely the outgrowth of the German delegation's initiation and support, it may well be hailed as Germany's amende honorable for its opposition to America's proposition for a world treaty of obligatory arbitration.

WM. I. HULL.

DISARMAMENT

Universal peace is the hope of the whole world peace between individual men, peace between social groups. It has been the heart's desire of good men and the dream of poets and philosophers since time immemorial.

Scientific study and investigation of the subject, however, only began with the convening of the First Hague Conference. The most remarkable and most hopeful result of this study has been the decline of agitation for national disarmament, or limitation of armaments. It will be recalled that the limitation of armaments was the chief object of the Russian Emperor in issuing the call for the First Hague Conference, and stood at the head of his famous rescript of August 24, 1898. Strangely enough, the subject was omitted altogether in the call for the Second Hague Conference. It will be recalled that at the First Conference the subject was taken up with alacrity by almost general consent, and was assigned as the first question for investigation by the first committee. At the Second Hague Conference the subject was not taken up seriously and was not assigned to any committee. Investigation brought out as it must always bring out the fact that the causes of war lie deeper than armaments and that armaments have other functions besides that of war; that under existing conditions disarmament is impossible; that any attempt to bring it about would be fraught with disaster; and that the agitation for disarmament is liable to be harmful to the cause of peace itself.

The more the general subject of peace is investigated the less important becomes the question of disarmament. Indeed, enthusiasm on the subject is becoming a sign of superficiality on the part of the individual, and of insincerity on the part of the nation. All that was done on this subject by the two conferences of The Hague was to recommend to the nations the "study of the question home." Now, the study of the question is eminently desirable, not

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only as the means of educating men out of the popular error of depending upon disarmament, but also as a means of turning the feet of the wise seeker, who loves peace, out of this blind alley into the path that really leads to the great goal of general peace.

All life in this world is cast in the midst of dangers dangers of derangement within, dangers of violence without. Throughout all nature, from the lowest form of simple protoplasm up to the highest social organization found in a great complex nation, the first law is self-preservation. No living thing, whether plant, animal, man, or nation, can hope to survive without large provision of self-defense and for procuring things necessary to sustain life. In all organizations the most important fundamental function is the one intrusted with providing self-defense. In the case of nations this lies in the instrumentalities of armaments. Where life may be in danger all other functions must he held subject to this function of self-defense.

Indeed, broadly speaking, all characteristics, traits, habits, institutions, in plants, animals, and men, have had their origin, motive, and evolutionary history in efforts for better self-preservation, and thus far more for self-defense than for procuring the necessities for life. Peace between men is no exception in its evolution. Kindred families formed clans for the primary purpose of a better defense against a common foe, and only then did inter-family wars decline; kindred clans formed tribes for the same purpose, and only then did clan wars decline; kindred clans formed nations for the same purpose, and only then did tribal wars decline. The time is ripening fast under the annihilation of space for nations to form unions for the same purpose. Ultimately, the union of nations will come together to form a great brotherhood to avoid fighting each other, or else to face the common perils that nature will probably throw across the path of all human life.

As man gains more and more control over nature's forces, he will become more and more emancipated from the law of destroying, and will come more and more under the law of serving. Cooperation will supplant strife when destroying declines. Then, and not until then, can defense against destruction be expected to decline. The transformation will, of course, be an evolutionary one. The old

law giving ground to the new, only as the new demonstrates in actual experience its superiority in meeting the demands of selfpreservation. Evidently the process must be slow at best, even after material conditions have thoroughly changed, for it rests in the ultimate on a change in human nature. All mankind has consciously or unconsciously the destroying heredity from all the past generations lived under the old law. Furthermore, the whole world must move forward all together. As long as some nations still arm themselves to live by the law of war other nations must be armed to resist them and restrain them.

In

Two of the greatest nations of the world, Japan and Russia, are just emerging from feudalism, the former being permeated with the spirit of military chivalry, and upon these two nations will depend the development of half of the human race. The very forces which are to overthrow destroying in the end only multiply manyfold at the present juncture the powers and opportunities of the nations bent on destroying. These, arming more and more as they will, must necessitate ever-increasing armaments on the part of the more advanced nations, not only for self-defense on their part, but also for keeping the peace so that the forces of transformation will have an opportunity to work. Modern armaments are thus of two directly opposite kinds armaments for peace and armaments for war. practical life it is only through the former that the latter can be curbed until the slower forces of transformation can work the overthrow of war. Fortunately, the naval form of armament is chiefly a question of wealth and not of men in arms, and the advanced nations are the wealthy nations, so that they can, if they would, derive complete self-defense and place a check upon the aggression of war while their citizens remained at peaceful pursuits. Unfortunately, the misguided efforts of the disarmament agitators have no influence on the backward nations, but tend, through the influence of public opinion, which is strong in advanced nations, to check the preparation of the latter institutions, the one great essential to peace at this stage of the world's progress.

In human affairs there are two methods of attaining an end individual and collective. Individual methods come first in time,