262 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-XX 



a comic side. A very good one comes from May Wright 

 Sewall ; would that all the others were as thoughtful ! 



It goes without saying that the Quakers are out in full 

 force. We have been answering by cable some of the 

 most important communications sent us from America; 

 the others we shall try to acknowledge by mail, though 

 they are so numerous that I begin to despair of this. 

 If these good people only knew how all this distracts us 

 from the work which we have at heart as much as they, 

 we should get considerably more time to think upon the 

 problems before us. 



May 22. 



In the afternoon came M. de Bloch, the great publicist, 

 who has written four enormous volumes on war in mod 

 ern times, summaries of which, in the newspapers, are 

 said to have converted the young Emperor Nicholas to 

 peace ideas, and to have been the real cause of his call 

 ing the conference together. I found him interesting, full 

 of ideas, and devoted most earnestly to a theory that 

 militarism is gradually impoverishing all modern states, 

 and that the next European war will pauperize most of 

 them. 



Just afterward Count Welsersheimb, president of the 

 Austrian delegation, called, and was very anxious to 

 know the line we are to take. I told him frankly that 

 we are instructed to present a plan of arbitration, and 

 to urge a resolution in favor of exempting private prop 

 erty, not contraband of war, from seizure on the high 

 seas ; that we are ready to go to the full length in im 

 proving the laws of war, and in extending the Geneva 

 rules to maritime warfare ; but that we look on the ques 

 tion of reducing armaments as relating wholly to Europe, 

 no part of it being applicable to the United States. 



As he seemed strongly in favor of our contention re 

 garding private property on the high seas, but fearful 

 that Kussia and England, under a strict construction of 

 the rules, would not permit the subject to be introduced, 



