The Dominion. SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 1908. WITH THE PEACEMAKERS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 98, 18 January 1908, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 1908. WITH THE PEACEMAKERS.

, r Tiie Hague Conference, which occupied so much attention last year, lias had at least one practical result of 'a most interesting . and not altogether useless character. It may not have set us much further forward ou the road to "the Federation of the World," but it has furnished material for many most interesting special articles in the m ore _ serious periodicals of Great Britain and America. Of all the, articles that we hare read none is more attractive, or more provocative of reflection, hostile of friendly to, its writer's views, than the "Impressions" which Mr. W. T. Stead contributes to the December issue -of the " Contemporary Iteviejv." The chemist, when he is given an unknown substance for analysis deduces its idcntilicatory properties from the effect which it produces upon certain standard " re-agents." Mr. Stead is one of the standard political re-agents, and a fairly clear understanding of the vital character of llic Conference can he deduced from the "reaction" that he gives. He came away from The Hague with four deep impressions. The first, and, he says, "perhaps the deepest" impression left upon his mind was 1 ' the truth of St. Paul's saying that God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." In the unbroken equality which marked the intercourse of the 200 delegates of the forty-four Governments represented, there was, apparent to Mr. Stead, no difference of colour, of race, of religion, of culture, of continent or of civilisation. The Haitian negro, the German ambassador, the Persian plenipotentiary, the Chinese delegate, the Turkish pasha all. "met at table and in council as men and brethren." No stronglymarked difference existed, in point of intellect, between one delegate and another. We should have been certain of this without being told. Mr. Stead flings a triumphant jeer at " the fetish of race superiority," which " received scant respect" at The Hague. The fact that Mr. Stead should have been so deeply impressed by this absence of racial arrogance, shows that he misunderstands the feeling of those communities which have lately heen "catching it" for their alleged worship of the " fetish " referred to. No sensible man talks nowadays of " race inferiority" in the group of civilised peoples, but only of " racial incompatibilities"; and it is therefore impossible to take, as Mr. Stead seems to /ako.. of tha "E-'asV

as lvan'ant for warm hopes and high expectations of a Federated World. .More characteristic of Mr. Stead was Ins second impression of the CoilfereJlc.e~" the existence of a, common ethical conception among its members, a conception which did' not seem to be materially .affected by the nominal religions .which they professed." All— ileathen, Moslem, Christian, Agnostic — acted very ninch in the saine way." lieligion was kept entirely out of the Conference's proceedings. Mr. Stead notes that on the question of floating mines "the worst olfenders against ethical, principles were the Christian North Americans and the Christian Germans; while the staunehest advocates of an interdict upon such a fiendish method of paging war were tliq heatlien' Chinese and the non-Chris-tian Such'a broad generalisfitidii tiS tliis journalistic sharpening °f a picturesque contrast is really very misleading. If ethical principles ulon e could have governed the issue, there'Avould have been, unanimity at the Conference, but ethical principles did not rule the question, and the contrast is, therefore, not a real contrast of ethical standards at all. Mr. Stead notes also in this connection two facts that seem to h.aVe impressed him as being in themselves singular, and as so much 'more: evidence of . the practicabloiiQss of anearly " brotherhood of man." "The only member of the Conference," he'writes, " who ever expressed to me with any vehemence any convictions as' to the importance of morality in the .conduct of international relations was one of the Chinese delegates, who was. a frank Materialist._ The only delegate, who seemed seriously to regard with concern the decadent tendencies of modern civilisation, was a philosophic who scouted tho notion, of the immortality of the soii]." These facts, if they are facts, which they may. very well be, are not at all singular; nor, if Mr. Stead had not forgotten that ethical principles can exist apart from religious dogma, would he have, so cited the Chinese Materialist as to make him hint of the fundamental oneness of Eastern and Western raceideals.' A recent'. cable message reported Mr. Stead as having outdone the Navv League in his anxiety for increased British naval activity, so we presume lie has concluded after all that, the equality, social and 'ethical, of the Conference delegates, means as little as wo think it means. . The most valuable conclusion formed by Mr. Stead is that Latin America lias " arrived " as a very notable world force. .Nearly a score of American llepublics were summoned for the first time, and they sent some remarkably able men to represent. them, one of whom, Dr. Barbosa, of Brazil, actually grew, as the Conference progressed, into absolute pre-eminence. The advent: of Latin-America at The Hague—a whole new world full of Spanish and ' Portuguese "traditions— lias enormously improved the status of Spain and Portugal, and Mr. Stead makes the . shrewd comment that ' G rent Britain long ago experienced the same sensation, of the' increased importance of the. English-speaking world when the United States began to coiint as a world Power." Russia, with characteristically alert diplomacy, did everything possible through its delegates to give the Latin-Ameri-cans a courteous' recognition of their significance. M. do Nelidoft, the President, wrote in an autograph album: South America has. been a revelation to us all." Mr. Stead notes, though he gives no importance to the fact, that woman played no part whatever in the life of the Conference. The impression which we have formed from the "reaction," given by what we may call " the Stead test," is that, although the brilliant men whom he discusses so sympathetically and so vividly have done good work on the juridical side of war, they did nothing to warrant any lively hope that the Conference, under its present constitution, can ever do much to influence the great national impulses that breed the wars of the world.