THE PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL OF 

 ARBITRATION OF 1623. 



By THOMAS WILLING BALCH. 



{Read May 3, 1907.) 



The approaching second Hague Peace Conference, at which it is 

 proposed to discuss the possibiHties of placing some limit on the 

 expansion of armaments, calls public attention again to the evolution 

 and development of one of the most beneficent of human institu- 

 tions — international arbitration. The first glimmers of humanity 

 seeking to avoid the horrors entailed by war are lost in the haze of 

 early history. Probably we shall never know with whom the idea 

 of international arbitration originated. One of the earliest written 

 expressions of the wish to escape the arbitrament of arms was given 

 by the prophet Micah, who was born about 750 B. C, when he said : 



"And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations 

 afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears 

 into pruning-hooks : nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither 

 shall they learn war any more." 



And a little later the prophet Isaiah said : 



"And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; 

 they shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruning- 

 hooks : nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn 

 war any more." 



The Greeks made some attempts at arbitration among them- 

 selves, notably in an agreement between the Lacedaemonians and 

 the Argives. But with the '* barbarians " who formed the rest of 

 the world, the Greeks, apparently, would not arbitrate. For a long 

 time the Romans as the masters of the world maintained peace by 

 force of arms but not by arbitration. 



In the twelfth century Gerohus^ or Gerloius is said to have sug- 

 gested something like arbitration; and in the reign of Philippe le 

 Bel of France (1285-13 14), Pierre Dubois is believed to have out- 



^ " International Tribunals," by W. Evans Darby, London, 1904, p. 22. 



802 



