A LEAGUE OF PEACE 407 



final important advance in this direction that remains to be made, and 

 means that peaceful commerce has been rescued from the demon war. 

 Should it be made, the trenchers of St. Andrews students may well 

 whirl in the air with cheers. 



The Treaty of Washington is probably to rank in history as Mr. 

 Gladstone's greatest service, because it settled by arbitration the Ala- 

 bama Claims, a question fraught with danger, and which, if left open, 

 would probably have driven apart and kept hostile to each other for a 

 long period the two branches of the English-speaking race. A states- 

 man less powerful with the great masses of his countrymen could not 

 have carried the healing measure, for much had to be conceded by 

 Britain, for which it deserves infinite credit. Three propositions were 

 insisted upon by America as a basis for arbitration, and although all 

 were reasonable and should have been part of international law, still 

 they were not. Their fairness being recognized, Mr. Gladstone boldly 

 and magnanimously agreed that the arbiters should be guided by them. 

 These defined very clearly the duties of neutrals respecting the fitting 

 out of ships of war in their ports, or the use of their ports as a naval 

 base. This they must now use ' due diligence ' to prevent. 



Morley says, in his Life of Gladstone : " The Treaty of Washington 

 and the Geneva arbitration stand out as the most noble victory in the 

 19th century of the noble art of preventive diplomacy, and the most 

 signal exhibition in their history of self-command in two of three chief 

 democratic powers of the Western World." 



The Brussels Convention met in 187-4. 



Even as late as the earlier half of last century the giving up of 

 towns and their inhabitants to the fury of the troops which stormed 

 them was permitted by the usages of war. Defending his conduct in 

 Spain, Wellington says : " I believe it has always been understood that 

 the defenders of a fortress stormed have no right to quarter." After 

 the storming of San Sebastian, as to plunder, he says : " It has fallen to 

 my lot to take many towns by storm, and I am concerned to add that 

 I never saw nor heard of one so taken by any troops that it was not 

 plundered." 



Shakespeare's description of the stormed city can never be for- 

 gotten : 



The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, 

 And the flushed soldier rough and hard 

 In liberty of bloody hand shall range 

 With conscience wide as hell. 



This inhuman practise was formally abolished by the Brussels 

 Declaration — that ' a town taken by storm shall not be given up to 

 the victorious troops to plunder.' To-day to put a garrison to the 

 sword would be breach of the law of quarter, as well as a violation of 



