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The Review of Reviews. 



promotion of international peace. I obtained ihv 

 signatures of more than loo Members of Parliament to 

 a memorial to Campbell-Bannerman in favour of this 

 idea, and secured the adhesion of Mr. Asquith and 

 Mr. Lloyd George, and I .succeeded in getting' a begin- 

 ning made in an annual grant for the purpose of 

 international hospitality, which figures in the Estimates 

 each year. I did my best to secure the acceptance of 

 the principle in Paris as well as in London, and the 

 idea met with considerable success in America, where it 

 was taken up by others, but it has never been fully 

 carried out at all. I saw Lloyd George immediately after 

 his entering the Treasury. He told me he entirely 

 approved of the idea and would give it effect. When 

 it came before the Cabinet the sum voted was less . 

 than los. for £i,ooo, and was confined to the cost 

 of international hospitality. The next step which I 

 took was to promote an interchange of visits between 

 the journalists of Germany and England. I first 

 proposed and finally carried out an arrangement by 

 which twenty or thirty German editors were invited 

 to England for a week. The English editors paid a 

 return visit to Germany in 1908. It was followed by 

 visits between the clergy of both countries, and Prince 

 von Billow, then Imperial Chancellor, told me that he 

 considered that the promotion of international visits 

 and the exchange of international hospitality were the 

 most hopeful and the most effective of all methods of 

 promoting peace. 



SIR KDWARl) C.REV AND ARMAMENTS. 



At the end of 1907 I wrote a letter to all the news- 

 papers of the world in which I called attention to the 

 forthcoming meeting of the Hague Conference and 

 urged that the Powers should instruct their delegates 

 to concentrate upon practical things. One practical 

 suggestion which I put forward was that of the Peace 

 J3udget of £1 per £1.000 to be spent on promoting 

 peace, and the other was that they .should place any 

 .State under an interdict that went to war without 

 first appealing to arbitration. The chief point of my 

 letter was to show that it was absolutely impossible 

 to get anything done about the question of armaments 

 at the Hague Conference. That unanimity was 

 necessary, and that unanimity was, on the face of it, 

 impossible, seeing that Germany refused absolutely to 

 enter into any agreement to the limitation or standstill 

 of armaments. Before dispatching this letter 1 sent 

 it to Sir Edward Grey, who sent for me and asked 

 me to omit from the letter the reference to armaments. 

 He said that, whatever I might say in my letter, it 

 was his fi.xed determination to bring the question of 



armaments before the Conference, T remarked to him 

 that it was running his head against a stone wall. 

 He said he was amazed to hear such a thing from me; 

 that if it was not possible to carry a resolution in favour 

 of the reduction of armaments, the reason was that if 

 public opinion was not ripe, it needed to be ripened, 

 and there was no method of ripening it better than by 

 a serious debate at an international parliament. He 

 said that the only question that people cared anything 

 about was the question of armaments, that if nothing 

 was done about armaments the Conference would 

 become a farce, and we should become the laughing 

 stock of the world. I said that it was the first time 

 that I had ever been upbraided by a Foreign Minister 

 for lack of faith in the cause of peace, but since he was 

 determined to take such a line I thought it was very 

 necessary to advise our friends of peace in Europe 

 and our own country as to the line he was going to 

 take. I then went to Campbell-Bannerman, who 

 confirmed what Sir Edward Grey said. He said that 

 Grev was very earnest about armaments, and Campbell- 

 Bannerman thought my idea of going round Europe 

 was a very good and useful one. He asked me when 

 1 returned to go to him and report as to what I found 

 out as to how the land lay. 



EUROPEAN PEACE TOUR, 



I then began my tour, I found that in the House 

 of Commons pacifists like Sir W, R, Cremer had not the 

 slightest ghost of an idea that Grey was going to take 

 .such a strong line, and that the public knew nothing of 

 the policy he was about to pursue. It was the same in 

 every other country that I visited. I found that no 

 British ambassador had received any instructions from 

 Sir Edward Grey urging him to communicate with the 

 other Powers concerning the line that Sir Edward Grey 

 told me he was adopting. My statements were 

 recei\'ed with incredulity and in some cases with 

 indignation and resentment ; but I was faithful to 

 my self-imposed mission. I went from Paris to Rome, 

 from Rome to Vienna, from Vienna to Buda Pesth, 

 from Buda Pesth to Berlin, from Berlin to Copenhagen, 

 from Copenhagen to Stockholm, from Stockholm to 

 Christiania, and from Christiania back to Berlin, and 

 so home, I then went over to America, and saw 

 Mr. Root and Mr. Roosevelt, and addressed meetings 

 in several of the large cities, setting forth the idea of 

 the Peace Budget and the Peace Pilgrimage, for the 

 purpose of affording the delegates at the Hague with 

 a demonstration in favour of Sir Edward Grey's 

 programme. I found everywhere that the smaller 

 States would be -delighted with such a proposal, and 



