CHAPTER FORTY-THREE 



Aeon- EARLY in August we crossed the Channel bound for 

 Bruges, where I left the others to listen to the chimes 

 in the great Belfry, meanwhile going on to Ghent to 

 give an address on " World Peace and the Treaty of 

 Ghent" before an international congress of school 

 principals under the presidency of Dr. Charles 

 Rossignol. 1 The document in question, signed a 

 century before (December 24, 1814) in a hall close to 

 our meeting place, put an end, we hope forever, to 

 armed strife among English-speaking peoples. A 

 good condensation in French of my remarks had been 

 distributed through the audience, and was also, at the 

 end, read aloud by an intelligent young woman. 



The honored name of Ghent, I said, brings to the American 

 many and varied associations. These spring not from its wealth 

 in memories of stirring scenes, not from its "great bell Roland," 

 not from its past imperial splendors or its industrial or commer- 

 cial successes of today. In its relation to the peace of the world 

 lies for us its chief interest. . . . 



The sole content of the Treaty of Ghent was "Cease firing!" 

 On its face it settled nothing. The alleged questions of honor 

 which led to the war were forgotten in the stress of fighting by 

 land and sea, and remained in abeyance until nearly a century 

 later, when they were quietly and rationally adjusted at The 

 Hague. The treaty settled nothing because it merely registered 

 the results of a war that had no real result. Between the lines 

 one reads the verdict. . . . 



Concluding, I referred to the lesson of our undefended 

 Canadian border, also to the ultimate necessity to Europe of 

 federation such as had been the making of America; and I voiced 



1 See Chapter xxxvn, page 326. 



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