AT THE HAGUE PEACE CONFERENCE: IH-1899 299 



There seems danger of a catastrophe. Those of us 

 who are faithful to arbitration plans will go on and do 

 the best we can; but there is no telling what stumbling- 

 blocks Germany and her allies may put in our way ; and, 

 of course, the whole result, without their final agreement, 

 will seem to the world a failure and, perhaps, a farce. 



The immediate results will be that the Russian Em 

 peror will become an idol of the &quot; plain people &quot; through 

 out the world, the German Emperor will be bitterly hated, 

 and the socialists, who form the most dreaded party on 

 the continent of Europe, will be furnished with a thor 

 oughly effective weapon against their rulers. 



Some days since I said to a leading diplomatist here, 

 1 The ministers of the German Emperor ought to tell him 

 that, should he oppose arbitration, there will be concen 

 trated upon him an amount of hatred which no minister 

 ought to allow a sovereign to incur. &quot; To this he an 

 swered, i That is true ; but there is not a minister in Ger 

 many who dares tell him.&quot; 



June 14. 



This noon our delegation gave a breakfast to sundry 

 members of the conference who are especially interested 

 in an effective plan of arbitration, the principal of these 

 being Count Nigra from Italy ; Count Welsersheimb, first 

 delegate of Austria; M. Descamps of Belgium; Baron 

 d Estournelles of France; and M. Asser of the Nether 

 lands. After some preliminary talk, I read to them the 

 proposal, which Sir Julian had handed me in the morning, 

 for the purpose of obviating the objection to the council 

 of administration in charge of the court of arbitration 

 here in The Hague, which was an important feature of 

 his original plan, but which had been generally rejected 

 as involving expensive machinery. His proposal now is 

 that, instead of a council specially appointed and sala 

 ried to watch over and provide for the necessities of 

 the court, such council shall simply be made up of the 

 ministers of sundry powers residing here, thus doing 



