The Days of a Man [^1918 



Holland. After a discussion of the difficulties which 

 lay in the way, the signers said: 



Ought we not to consider that the time has come for neutrals 

 to construct a bridge between the contending parties, who do 

 not seem able to get near each other without help from outside? 



By the proposed basis for mediation Germany 

 was to be asked to evacuate Belgium and France, 

 acknowledge the right of nations to decide their own 

 fate, and be willing to join a League of Nations. As 

 for the Entente, it was suggested that they should 

 pledge themselves not to dismember Austria-Hungary 

 nor launch an economic war after the treaty of peace, 

 at the same time officially accepting President 

 Wilson's four imperatives. 

 The voca- Having expanded the above propositions in some 

 ^hV^ d? ^^^^^^y the committee questioned if it might "not be 

 the vocation of Holland to do a great deed in the 

 interest of peace by taking some initiative in that 

 direction then." They also asked judgment on a: 

 formal resolution adopted at meetings held by the 

 Netherlands Anti-war Council at Amsterdam, Rotter- 

 dam, and The Hague on July 31, 1918, but never 

 acted on by the Dutch government. This read as 

 follows : 



Considering that both belligerents have repeatedly declared 

 their willingness to consider peace proposals of their opponents, 

 but that each group persists in its refusal to make peace pro- 

 posals itself, for fear that this would be interpreted as a sign of 

 weakness; 



Convinced that at the present moment each belligerent party 

 considers the prevention of a recurrence of this war to be its 

 supreme war aim, and is desirous in order to attain this aim of 

 cooperating towards the formation of a League of Nations, and 

 that, moreover, pronouncements of statesmen of belligerent 



: 756 n 



