The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, APRIL 9, 1906. THE HAGUE CONFERENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 85, 9 April 1906, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

MONDAY, APRIL 9, 1906. THE HAGUE CONFERENCE.

For the cause that lacks as»Ut*no*, For the wrong that needs rertttanoti For the future to the distance, Am 4 the good that vie cm d*.

It is over aeven years since the Tsar astonished the world by calling together the first Hague Conference for the purpose of adjusting international difficulties and promoting the cause of universal peace. It was hardly to be expected that finality would be reached on many important international questions at this first meeting of the Powers. But as a matter of fact the first Hague Conference did a great deal more than its most cordial friends anticipated. The proposal for the international reduction of armaments was indeed premature and Utopian; but the Conference finally passed a resolution to the effect that the reduction of the excessively heavy military budgets with which the world is now burdened is eminently desirable. The final act of the Conference further embodies conventions relating to the usages of warfare, on land and sea, and several declarations prohibiting for at least five year 3 the use in war by the contracting Powers of asphyxiating gases, expansive bullets and projectiles thrown from balloons. However, the most important achievement of the first Hague Conference was the report-of the special Commission set up to consider tho question of international arbitration. Following the recommendations of this Commission, a permanent international bureau was established at the Hague to afford facilities for arbitration. Each signatory Power was to nominate four members to this court; but Powers which had not signed the agreement might on application make use of the arbitration court. The reference of the Dogger Bank episode to this tribunal will be still fresh in the memory of our readers; and whatever else may be thought of the value of the Hague Conference or the intentions of its promoters, it will hardly be denied that the institution of this arbitration tribunal was in itself a work of the greatest international interest and importance.

Before the Conference closed in 1599 several resolutions were carried referring to problems still unsolved which might fomi subjects of discussion at future International Peace-Parliaments. The rights and duties of neutrals, the reduction oi naval and military expenditure, the inviolability of private pro- ( perty during war, and ttoa bombardment of ports and coastal towns by naval forces were among the questions suggested for subsequent deliberation. It is natural therefore that these subjects ; should be included in the programme to be laid before the representatives of the Powers at the Peace Conference which is to meet at tha , s Hague next year. The first definite proposal for a second conference was made at the meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, held at St. Louis in AQO4, The union requested President Roosevelt to take steps to convoke another gathering in tie interests of peace at the Hague,.

iuiA the President, through Mr. Hay, consulted the Powers as'to how far they wera inclined .to go in the matter. Russia, whose attention was then fully occupied in the Far East, refused to fall in line with the other Powers; and when the matter again came before the Inter-Parliamentary Conference at Brussels last year, it was evident that the Czar was disinclined to. yield the first place to America. President Roosevelt, with rare tact and generosity, then decided to concede, to the Tsar the honour of convoking the second conference. As the original author of the movement, the Tsar certainly had some claim on the recognition of the, Powers; and Russia accordingly agreed to make arrangeV ments for this second International Peace Conference. It was stipulated, however, that the scope of the questions to-be considered should be defined beforehand; and it will be noted as a somewhat omnious .sign, that according to our cable the question of the limitatian of armaments is not to be brought under discussion. There is something curiously ironical |in the position that Russia, as convener of the Peace Conference, has now assumj cd. Last week we were informed that | the Tsar is to propose to the Conference several important modifications in the practices of naval and military warfare. Without any desire to treat the Tsar's good intentions cynically, the world can hardly be expected to forget that Russia's present views on warfare are based on her recent bitter experiences in a struggle which was forced on by her greed and dishonesty since the Tsar called* the first Peace Conference together. The. Tsar's "desire to approach the lofty idjal of international justice which is the constant goal of the civilised world," as set forth in the invitation to the Powers, may provoke a smile of derision from those who recall lvishineff and Vladimir's Day, Odessa and Moscow, and the horrors of Siberian exile. But it is not necessary to regard the.Tsar as consciously a hypocrite, Nicholas 11. as not the first of his line who has managed to com-

bine autocratic tyranny with vaguely sentimental idealism. In the early years of the 19th century Alexander I. of Russia played much the same part in Europe as his successor Nicholas today. It was he who first suggested "the Holy Alliance"—a compact between the Great Powers to govern according to the principles of Christian morality. The fact that the Holy Alliance was utilised by Metternich and Talleyrand for their own unscrupulous purposes—to stamp out liberty and rivet the shackles of tyranny even more firmly on the subject masses—this cannot fairly be urged as an accusation against Alexander I. His sentimental pietism, weak and impracticable as it seems, was sincere enough; and Nicholas 11. is no doubt honest in his incoherent aspirations for the uplifting of the race. The Tsar of all the Russias is not the first despot who has found it possible to unite altruism in theory with tyranny in practice. But whatever may be the truth about Nicholas H., the world at large will gain something from the deliberations of the second Peace Conference; for the mere fact of its convocation will create an impulse toward ternational harmony and supply an excuse for the avoidance of actual conflict between civihsed nations.