PEACE RIVER 



PEACE RIVER 



rules of war on land. The third dealt with 

 arbitration. 



The convention relating to mediation and 

 arbitration was generally regarded as the most 

 encouraging work of the conference. The pow- 

 ers agreed to submit serious disputes to ar- 

 bitration, questions involving "national hon- 

 or" and "essential interests" being excepted. 

 The machinery for adjusting grievances is pro- 

 vided for in a Permanent Court of Arbitration, 

 with a bureau at The Hague. The court con- 

 sists of four representatives of each power, 

 chosen for six years. The trial court consists, 

 unless otherwise arranged, of two members 

 chosen by each nation involved in the dispute 

 and a fifth chosen by the four previously 

 named. Mediation might be requested by the 

 nations involved or tendered by a neutral 

 power. 



A second conference held in 1907 adopted 

 thirteen conventions intended to strengthen 

 the cause of arbitration and prevent needless 

 cruelty in war. It established an international 

 prize court and insisted on the inviolability of 

 the postal service. 



The peace movement suffered greatly in all 

 belligerent countries during the War of the 

 Nations; but since the majority of the pacifists, 

 while believing that war is always an evil, be- 

 lieve also that it is not the greatest possible 

 evil, the great war was not looked upon as a 

 complete relinquishment of the peace princi- 

 ples. The War of the Nations, they felt, might 

 make future wars impossible. G.B.D. 



Consult Andrew's The Promotion of Peace; 

 Butler's The International Mind; Eliot's The 

 Road Toward Peace. 



Related Subject*. The reader is referred in 



this connection to the following articles in these 



volumes : 



Arbitration, subhead 

 International Arbi- 

 tration 



Carnegie, Andrew 



Geneva Convention 



Hague, The 

 International Law 

 International Relations 

 League to Enforce 

 Peace 



PEACE RIVER AND PEACE RIVER COUN- 

 TRY. The Peace River, in Western Canada, 

 is the greatest of the tributaries of the Macken- 

 zie River. It rises in British Columbia, cuts 

 its way through the Rocky Mountains, then 

 flows northeast across Alberta into the Great 

 Slave River just below the point at which the 

 latter issues from Lake Athabaska. Its course 

 to the headwaters of the Finlay, its principal 

 tributary, is 1,065 miles long, and its drainage 

 basin includes 117,000 square miles, an area 

 equal to nearly one-half that of Alberta. 



Details of Its Course. The Peace River is 

 formed by the junction of two streams, the 

 Finluy and the Parsnip, both of which rise in 

 British Columbia. The Finlay, the larger of 

 the two, rises in the north-central part, and 

 flows southward; its source is less than twenty 

 miles east of the Skeena River, which flows 

 southwestward into the Pacific Ocean. The 

 Parsnip rises in the central part of the province, 

 at a point about fifteen miles from another 

 large southward-flowing stream, the Fraser, 

 whose great bend is caused by the same moun- 

 tains on which the Parsnip rises. The Finlay 



THE PEACE RIVER COUNTRY 



River is 250 miles long, and the Parsnip, 145 

 miles. 



From the confluence of these streams to the 

 junction with the Slave River is a distance of 

 about 815 miles. For 300 miles it follows a 

 general easterly direction, with an average fall 

 of two and one-half feet per mile, to the mouth 

 of the Smoky River, which is its principal 

 tributary. Up to this point the river valley is 

 really a channel cut through a plateau. Back 

 from the river the land is level or rolling, and 

 is thinly wooded. Below the mouth of the 

 Smoky River, the Peace turns, and pursues an 

 irregular but generally northward direction al- 

 most to Fort Vermilion. The lower part of its 

 course, to its mouth, is again eastward. Below 

 the Smoky, steep sandstone cliffs at first border 

 the bed of the Peace River, but farther down 

 the valley becomes wider and shallower. Plains, 

 covered with grass or a sparse growth of trees, 

 border it on both sides. 



