AT THE HAGUE PEACE CONFERENCE: IV 1899 313 



foreign affairs, and to select and to control such secre 

 taries and officers as may be necessary for the ordinary 

 conduct of affairs. 



Such council would receive notice from powers having 

 differences with each other which are willing to submit 

 the questions between them to a court, and would then 

 give notice to the judges selected by the parties. The 

 whole of the present plan, except some subordinate fea 

 tures of little account, which can easily be stricken out, 

 is voluntary. There is nothing whatever obligatory 

 about it. Every signatory power is free to resort to 

 such a tribunal or not, as it may think best. Surely a 

 concession like this may well be made to the deep and 

 wide sentiment throughout the world in favor of some 

 possible means of settling controversies between nations 

 other than by bloodshed. 



Pardon me for earnestly pressing upon you these facts 

 and considerations. I beg that you will not consider me 

 as going beyond my province. I present them to you as 

 man to man, not only in the interest of good relations 

 between Germany and the United States, but of interests 

 common to all the great nations of the earth, of their 

 common interest in giving something like satisfaction 

 to a desire so earnest and wide-spread as that which has 

 been shown in all parts of the world for arbitration. 



I remain, dear Baron von Billow, 



Most respectfully and sincerely yours, 



(Sgd.) ANDREW D. WHITE. 



P. S. Think how easily, if some such tribunal existed, 

 your government and mine could refer to it the whole 

 mass of minor questions which our respective parliamen 

 tary bodies have got control of, and entangled in all 

 sorts of petty prejudices and demagogical utterances; 

 for instance, Samoa, the tonnage dues, the sugar-bounty 

 question, the most-favored-nation clause, etc., etc., which 

 keep the two countries constantly at loggerheads. Do 

 you not see that submission of such questions to such 



