4 i4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



President Roosevelt invited the nations to call the conference, but 

 has recently deferred to the Emperor of Russia as the proper party to 

 call the nations together again. 



Should the proposed periodic congress he established, we shall have 

 the germ of the council of nations, which is coming to keep the peace 

 of the world, judging between nations, as the Supreme Court of the 

 United States judges to-day between states embracing an area larger 

 than Europe. It will be no novelty, but merely an extension of an 

 agency already proved upon a smaller scale. As we dwell upon the 

 rapid strides towards peace which man is making, the thought arises 

 that there may be those now present, who will live to see this world 

 council established, through which is sure to come in the course of time 

 the banishment of man-slaying among civilized nations. 



I hope my hearers will follow closely the proceedings of the Hague 

 conference, for upon its ever-extending sway largely depends the coming 

 of the reign of peace. Its next meeting will be important, perhaps 

 epoch-making. Its creation and speedy success prepare us for sur- 

 prisingly rapid progress. Even the smallest further step taken in any 

 peaceful direction would soon lead to successive steps thereafter. The 

 tide has set in at last, and is flowing as never before for the principle 

 of arbitration as against war. 



So much for the temple of peace at The Hague. Permit me a 

 few words upon arbitration in general. 



The statesmen who first foresaw and proved the benefits of modern 

 arbitration were Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay and Grenville. 



As early as 1780 Franklin writes, " We make daily great improve- 

 ments in Natural, there is one I wish to see in Moral, Philosophy — the 

 discovery of a plan that would induce and oblige nations to settle their 

 disputes without first cutting each other's throats." His wish was 

 realized in the Jay Treaty of 1794, from which modern arbitration 

 dates. It is noteworthy that this treaty was the child of our race and 

 that the most important questions which arbitration has settled so 

 far have been those between its two branches. 



It may surprise you to learn that from the date of the Jay Treaty, 

 one hundred and eleven years ago, no less than five hundred and 

 seventy-one international disputes have been settled by arbitration. 

 Not in any case has an award been questioned or disregarded, except, I 

 believe, in one case, where the arbiters misunderstood their powers. 

 If in every ten of these differences so quietly adjusted without a wound, 

 there lurked one war, it follows that peaceful settlement has prevented 

 fifty-seven wars — one every two years. More than this, had the fifty- 

 seven wars, assumed as prevented by arbitration, developed, they would 

 have sown the seeds of many future wars, for there is no such prolific 

 mother of wars as war itself. Hate breeds hate, quarrel breeds quarrels, 



