304 BALCH — THE PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL [May 3, 



du Tremblay, councillor of the parlement of Paris, a brother of the councillor 

 of Cardinal de Richelieu, Frangois Le Clere du Tremblay, known to history 

 by his religious name of Father Joseph." ^ 



The work which should sooner or later make fimeric Cruce 

 famous and in which he proposed an International Court of Arbi- 

 tration between nations, he published at Paris in 1623, " Avec Privi- 

 lege du Roy." It was entitled : " Le Nouveau Cynee ou Discours 

 d'Estat." 



This book is small, but it is filled with much reasoning. In the 

 preface Cruce says : " This book would gladly make the tour of the 

 inhabited world, so as to be seen by all the Kings, and it would not 

 fear any disgrace, having truth for its escort, and the merit of 

 the subject which must serve as letters of recommendation and 

 credence." 



fimeric Cruce held, especially for the times in which he lived, 

 broad and liberal views. He believed that it was for the advantage 

 of humanity that the different races and nations should not seek to 

 injure and destroy one another by war, but rather to exchange their 

 varied products. While he could not see as clearly as it is possible 

 to-day that international trade is the power behind the throne of 

 international peace, yet he realized that the development of inter- 

 national commerce would tend, by making countries more inter- 

 dependent, to cause wars to grow less frequent. In this he agreed 

 with the view expressed by Washington in a letter which the great- 

 est of our Presidents wrote to la Fayette. Cruce favored the devel- 

 opment of canals as a means of communication, an item of national 

 policy that the Western nations of Europe have now largely adopted, 

 and one which the growing needs of cheap and easy communications 

 is bringing more prominently before public opinion here. He was 

 also an ardent supporter of religious toleration. 



Cruce believed that general peace is possible. But, he saw and 

 proclaimed with a clear vision that as a prerequisite to the peaceful 

 settlement of international disputes, some sort of machinery to dis- 

 pose of international disputes was necessary. With this in view, 

 he proposed " to choose a city where all sovereigns should have 



^ " Etudes de Droit International et de Droit Politique," by Ernest Nys, 

 Brussels, 1896, p. 308. 



