7 6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE PEACE 

 CONFERENCE. 



By JAMES HARRIS VICKEKY, LL. B. 



"In truth these 'eut-and- dried' schemes are of no value at all, unless as monuments of 

 the mingled simplicity and ingenuity of their authors." — Lawrence. 



THE view has been very generally entertained that all efforts 

 to promote the cause of peace and order in the world by cut- 

 and-dried schemes are bound to fail, and it must be admitted that 

 few truer words have been written than those which stand at the 

 head of this article. But this truth, like some others, may be 

 abused. Evidences are not wanting to show that the incredulity 

 which preceded the convening of the Peace Conference, the skep- 

 ticism which marked its first sessions, and a certain want of faith 

 which has since been manifested in various quarters in the practical 

 value of the measures adopted, are all mainly due to a misappli- 

 cation of this truth. 



The measures formulated at The Hague do not constitute a 

 " cut-and-dried scheme," but, on the contrary, they form an addi- 

 tional step in a natural, healthy, and orderly evolution of the forces 

 of peace which have so effectively asserted themselves in the im- 

 provement of international relations during the latter half of this 

 century.* 



The Geneva Red Cross Pules. — The first matter to which 

 attention will be invited is the extension of the Red Cross rules to 

 naval warfare. 



The Geneva Convention of 1864, which marks the beginning 

 of the organization known as the Red Cross Society, inaugurated a 

 vast and beneficent improvement in the then existing usage of 

 nations as regarded the care of the sick and wounded in war. Its 

 two salient features are the neutralization of the officers and forces 

 of the society and the disabled soldiers under their care, and the 

 establishment of a system to govern the conduct of its humane 

 work. 



At the dawn of modern international law during the first quar- 

 ter of the seventeenth century not only the sick and wounded of 

 a vanquished foe, but every prisoner, and even women and children, 

 suffered to the fullest the indignities and cruelties incident to the 

 rough warfare of the age; but the growth of mercy has softened 



* For an excellent statement of the work of the Conference from the German point of 

 view, see Die volkerrechtlichen Ergebnisse der Haager Conferenz, by Professor Zorn, of 

 Konigsberg, one of the German delegates, published in the Deutsche Rundschau, January 

 et sea. 



