NETHERLANDS. 



conference of Brussels, which has remained im- 

 ratified to the present day. 



" To accept in principle the employment of the 

 L'ood ollices of mediation and optional arbitra- 

 tion in cases lending themselves thereto, with the 

 object of preventing armed conflicts between na- 

 tions: an understanding with respect to the mode 

 of applying these good ollices. and the establish- 

 ment of a uniform practice in using them. 



guestions of a technical character would have 

 to I*- dealt with by the aid of specialists who 

 should IK- invited to take part in the labors of the 

 conference. 



Moth circulars were sent through the Russian 

 minister to the Vatican at the same time and in 

 the same manner a> to the other governments. 

 The <;overnment of Italy, which had acquiesced 

 in the admission of a papal delegate to the Inter- 

 national Metrical Congress of 1872, with the 

 reservation that it should not be taken as a 

 precedent for the representation of the Vatican 

 in conferences of a political character, intimated 

 that it would send no representative if the Holy 

 S-e wen- invited to take part in the conference. 

 Tin- efforts of partisans of the Church to secure 

 the representation of the Vatican for the avowed 

 purpose of establishing its position as an inter- 

 national state and raising political questions con- 

 firmed the Italian Government in its attitude. 

 The incorporation of Tuscany, Modena, Parma, 

 the Two Sicilies, and the papal states in the King- 

 dom of Italy had indeed never been consecrated 

 by treaty, as the cession of Alsace-Lorraine to 

 Germany had been, and if territorial questions 

 came to be discussed in the conference the rights 



of the deposed princes and the temporal power 

 of the Pope could not be excluded. The invita- 

 tions to the conference were issued by the Gov- 

 ernment of the Netherlands, The Hague having 

 lncn selected by the Czar as the place of meet- 

 ing. The C/ar's Government retained the initia- 

 tive and the right to decide the preliminary con- 

 ditions. No programme was discussed or de- 

 cided upon by the cabinets beforehand. No in- 

 vitation was sent to the Vatican, the Italian 

 minister having, on Feb. 16, positively informed 

 the Dutch Government that the presence of a 

 papal delegate would be incompatible with that 

 of a representative of Italy, and when the con- 

 ference assembled the papal internuncio departed 

 from The Hague. The Dutch Government desired 

 to send invitations to the South African Repub- 

 lic and the Orange Free State. The British Gov- 

 ernment, however, let it be known that it w r ould 

 not recognize the international position of the 

 former. The Dutch Government therefore sug- 

 gested that in order not to make an invidious 

 distinct ion between the two Boer republics nei- 

 ther should be invited. The Porte consented to 

 the representation of Bulgaria, but raised a ques- 

 tion of precedence, which was settled by seating 

 the Bulgarian representatives with the Turkish 

 delegation, but giving them an independent vote. 

 Montenegro was represented only by the Russian 

 delegates. None of the Spanish-American repub- 

 lics received an invitation. Outside of Europe, 

 only the United States. China, Japan, Persia, and 

 Siam were invited to send delegates. 



The conference assembled in the Huis ten Bosch 

 t The Hague on May 18. Baron De Staal, the 

 first Russian delegate, was elected president. The 

 states represented were Germany, the United 

 States. Austria-Hungary, Belgium, China, Den- 

 mark. Spain. France, Great Britain. Greece, Italy, 

 Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Persia, Portu- 

 gal. Roumania, Russia, Servia. Siaiu, Sweden 

 and Norway. Switzerland, Turkey, and Bulgaria. 



Three commissions were appointed. The first 

 commission, which had to inquire into the ques- 

 tion of the restriction of armaments and expendi- 

 ture for military purposes, had as material to 

 guide its deliberations Prince Metternich's mem- 

 orandum of 1816 regarding the suggestion of the 

 Prince Regent of England, supported by Alex- 

 ander I of Russia, that the normal peace footing 

 of the individual powers should be determined by 

 an international conference; the letter sent by 

 Napoleon III, the Emperor of the French, on Nov. 

 4, 1863, to the various sovereigns of Europe, pro- 

 posing a conference in Paris to lay the founda- 

 tions of universal peace; and documents contain- 

 ing arguments for disarmament or the reduction 

 or limitation of armaments by Rolin Jacquemyns, 

 Prof. Lorimer, Count Kamarowski, David Dudley 

 Field, M. Merignhac, Johann von Bloch, M. Bas- 

 tiat, and Prince Obolinsky. The second commis- 

 sion, which dealt with the laws governing civi- 

 lized warfare, had its attention directed to the 

 declaration of the congress of Paris signed on 

 April 6, 1856; the Geneva convention of Aug. 22, 

 1864; the additional clauses to the Geneva con- 

 vention adopted on Oct. 20, 1868, but never rati- 

 fied; the St. Petersburg convention prohibiting 

 among civilized nations the use of certain pro- 

 jectiles; the minutes of the Brussels conference 

 of 1874 on the laws and observances of war, which 

 did not lead to the conclusion of a convention; 

 the original suggestions for an international con- 

 vention on the Iaw 7 s and observances of war which 

 the Russian Government laid before the Brussels 

 conference; the manual on the laws of land war- 

 fare adopted by the Institute of International 

 Law sitting at Oxford in 1880; the rules regard- 

 ing the bombardment of cities by naval forces 

 adopted by the Institute of International Law 

 sitting at Venice in 1896; the declaration of 

 France and Great Britain regarding the additional 

 clauses to the Geneva convention; the proposal 

 of M. Moynier for the revision of the Geneva 

 convention; the provisional programme submit- 

 ted by the Swiss Federal Council ; and the circu- 

 lar sent by the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs 

 on Feb. 13, 1871, suggesting an agreement of 

 the powers to admit the principle of the invio- 

 lability of private property on the seas and a 

 precise definition of the term contraband of war. 

 The third commission, to which the question of 

 mediation and arbitration was referred, received 

 as documents to guide its deliberations Lord 

 Clarendon's proposal at the Paris congress of 

 1856 as regards a friendly state being called in 

 as mediator before having recourse to force; 

 Signer Mancini's resolution presented in the Ital- 

 ian Chamber of Deputies, expressing the hope 

 that arbitration would become the frequent and 

 accepted method of solving international contro- 

 versies in accordance with the principles of jus- 

 tice ; the resolution regarding compromise adopted 

 by the Institute of International Law sitting at 

 Zurich in 1877; the twelfth article of the gen- 

 eral act of the Berlin conference of 1885, regarding 

 mediation or arbitration in the case of contro- 

 versies connected with the basins of the Congo 

 and the Niger; the scheme of procedure in inter- 

 national arbitration drawn up by the Institute 

 of International Law sitting at The Hague in 

 1875; David Dudley Field's plan for the estab- 

 lishment of an international arbitration tribunal; 

 the bases of an international treaty for arbitra- 

 tion laid down at the meeting of the Association 

 of International Law at Brussels in 1895; the 

 proposal for the establishment of a permanent 

 court of international arbitration adopted by the 

 interparliamentary conference at Brussels in 1895; 



