498 INTERNATIONAL LAW 



The stages to be gone through from that point of view may, as we 

 think, be summarized as follows: The creation of international 

 offices, the organization of an international court, the preparation 

 of a public international law code, the organization of an inter- 

 national parliament, the formation of a permanent international 

 cabinet, and the adoption of an international budget to be voted on, 

 universal disarmament and the creation of a force of international 

 police, the selection of a world capital. 



At first blush such an enumeration will cause many a smile and 

 will arouse many doubts; but it is important to remember that the 

 first international convention, which may be considered as the very 

 first step upon the road, the itinerary of which we have made bold 

 to indicate, dates back only to 1864, and that since then the number 

 of similar conventions has increased with extreme swiftness. The fact 

 is that in Geneva, on August 22, 1864, the Red Cross Convention for 

 the purpose of improving the conditions affecting wounded soldiers 

 belonging to armies engaged in campaigns was signed, and it is in 

 this domain of war, which is in principle a negation of all humanita- 

 rian and brotherly thoughts, that a regulation was first attempted 

 and accomplished. 



Is not such a fact of a nature to destroy all doubts and justify every 

 hope? Humanity, which acclaimed the performance of such an 

 act and assured its execution, could not refuse to regulate, on an 

 international scale, its innumerable material and intellectual needs, 

 nor did it refuse; we might almost dispense with the mention of 

 what has been accomplished from this point of view, for the work 

 accomplished is contemporaneous, and surely present in all memories. 

 But we deem it useful to sketch, in general lines, a synthetic picture 

 of what has been done. 



This work is above all evidenced at this day by the creation of 

 international offices, the usefulness and value of which are not now 

 contested by any one. 



It is in the realm of transportation that the most important 

 treaties have been signed and successively examined and agreed upon: 

 The question of marine signals in the conferences of London and 

 Paris in 1864, and that of uniform navigation rules studied from 

 1879 to 1897, in meetings called likewise in these two capitals; that 

 of telegraphy and submarine telegraphic cables settled by the Paris 

 Conventions of May 17, 1865, and May 14, 1884; that of the mails 

 settled by the Berne Convention of October 9, 1874 ; that of railway 

 transportation of merchandise settled by the Berne Convention of 

 October 14, 1890. Mails, telegraphy, and railroads since then have 

 at Berne special international offices. 



This matter of the conveyance of ideas, men, and things has, thanks 

 to the mails and to telegraphy specially, made of the earth a single 



