UNlVtKS! I T 



AT THE HAGUE PEACE CONFERENCE: V-1899 353 



matters, but in many great matters absolutely impos 

 sible. While a few nations were willing to accept it in 

 regard to these minor matters, as, for example, postal 

 or monetary difficulties and the like, not a single power 

 was willing to bind itself by a hard-and-fast rule to sub 

 mit all questions to it and least of all the United States. 

 The reason is very simple: to do so would be to in 

 crease the chances of war and to enlarge standing armies 

 throughout the world. Obligatory arbitration on all 

 questions would enable any power, at any moment, to 

 bring before the tribunal any other power against which 

 it has, or thinks it has, a grievance. Greece might thus 

 summon Turkey; France might summon Germany; the 

 Papacy, Italy; England, Russia; China, Japan; Spain, 

 the United States, regarding matters in which the deepest 

 of human feelings questions of religion, questions of 

 race, questions even of national existence are concerned. 

 To enforce the decisions of a tribunal in such cases would 

 require armies compared to which those of the present 

 day are a mere bagatelle, and plunge the world into a sea 

 of troubles compared to which those now existing are as 

 nothing. What has been done is to provide a way, always 

 ready and easily accessible, by which nations can settle 

 most of their difficulties with each other. Hitherto, secur 

 ing a court of arbitration has involved first the education 

 of public opinion in two nations ; next, the action of two 

 national legislatures; then the making of a treaty; then 

 the careful selection of judges on both sides ; then delays 

 by the jurists thus chosen in disposing of engagements 

 and duties to which they are already pledged all these 

 matters requiring much labor and long time; and this 

 just when speedy action is most necessary to arrest the 

 development of international anger. Under the system 

 of arbitration now presented, the court can be brought 

 into session at short notice easily, as regards most na 

 tions, within a few weeks, at the farthest. When to these 

 advantages are added the provisions for delaying war 

 and for improving the laws of war, the calm judgment of 



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