The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1911. TOWARDS UNIVERSAL PEACE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1100, 12 April 1911, Page 6

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1911. TOWARDS UNIVERSAL PEACE.

The probability that a treaty of arbitration will shortly be arranged between Great Britain and America has led some optimists to anticipate an early realisation of the poet's dream of the federation of the world. One of these hopeful people is Mr. Hamilton Holt, a leading American journalist, who, in an article in the World's Work, suggests that when ths next Hague Conference meets in 1915, the then President of the United States will "do peaceably and on a world-scale what George Washington did only after a war and on a.Continental scale." Mr. Holt adds: "Greater things than this have happened in history"—but he does not specify them, lie does, however, apart from all millennial forecasts, give a clear and interesting summary of what has been done up to the present time in the way of enabling the nations to avoid going to war. Enumerating first of all the steps taken by Governments themselves, he claims priority in time for the establishment in 1888 of the Pan-American Conferences which now meet automatically and periodically at Washington. The first Hague Conference was held in 1899 and the second in 1905. They were largely occupied with measures for lessening the cruelties of war and making its rules more clear and precise, but they also created certain substitutes for war. The first Conference created The Hague Court of Arbitration, made provision for a Commission of Inquiry to ascertain facts before the commencement of hostilities, and proclaimed the right of a neutral nation to offer mediation after a war had begun. Each of theso measures has had practical and successful results. The existence of The Hague Court is held to have prevented England, Germany, and Italy from bombarding Venezuela. A Commission of Inquiry prevented war between Britain and Eiissia over the Dogger Bank affair. And PiiESiDEriui .Roosevelt availed himself of the power to offer mediation in the Russo-Japanese war. , The first Hague Conference comprised only those nations which had a representative at .St. Petersburg, but the second represented all the civilised nations of the world, and arranged to take the third out of the hands of Russia and put it in charge of an international preliminary committee. This is regarded as a step towards making the Conferences regularly periodic. So far they have only been able to make recommendations, which do not become international law until ratified by the various nations. The second Hague Conference also created the Court of Arbitral Justice and, the Prize Court. _ The Court of Arbitral Justice is intended to.give decisions on tho_ merits of the cases before it. while the Court of Arbitration facilitates practical settlements, which are generally in the nature of compromise. Difficulties having arisen as to the method of selecting the Judges, the Court of Arbitral Justice, Ihough "created," has not yet been constituted; but Mr. Knox, the American Secretary of State, has announced that the difficulties have baen overcome, and that the Court is likclv t,o be established soon. The Hague Court of Arbitration has 138 Judges, who are appointed by the various nations, and who constitute a panel from which any nation may select a Court of. three, five, or seven, to try a case in dispute. "The Court has absolutely no jurisdiction, can summon no nation to appear before it, assembles only when called into being, and has iv. means of enforcing its decisions." Eight cases have been decided by it and others are set down. Another international Court is the Central American Court of Justice. The five Central American States have I bound themselves to submit to it "all controversies or questions which may arise among them of whatever nature and no matter what their origin may be, in case their respective Departments of Foreign Affairs should not have been able to reach an understanding." Since the first Hague Conference 133 treaties ,of arbitration have been negotiated. Under several of these all disputes of whatever nature are to be settled by arbitration, but the great majority follow tbe Anglo-French model of 1003 in excepting "honour and vital interests." Mr. Holt remarks that, "as no nation has as yet defined 'honour and vital interests,' these treaties can be made to mean anything or nothing." The recent arbitration treaty between the United States and Japan contained the usual reservation, but each nation subsequently declared its intention to respect the territory and sovereignty of the other. It is expected that there will be no reservations in the coming arbitration treaty between Britain and America.

The neutralisation of territory is another preventive of war. Switzerland, Belgium, the lonian Islands, Luxemburg, Norway, the Straits of Magellan, the River Danube, Honduras, a portion of Savoy, and the Suez Canal are listed by Mn. Holt as already neutralised. Limitation of armaments by international agreement has been much talked of in the Old World, but we must go to America for examples ofpractical A treaty of partial disarmament between Chile and Argentina has been in force for ten years, and a treaty confining tn very small dimensions the naval forces on the American-Canadian lakes has remained unbroken for nearly a century. Other notable steps towards peace are the clause in th* Constitution of Brazil which prevents that Republic going to war

without, first offering arbitration, 1 and the creation by the United Slates last June of a Peace Commission to study the whole question of international peace and report, to Congress within two years. Semiofficial peace agencies include the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Nobel Prize Committee, while much is also being clone by the six hundred non-ofiieial peace societies in different, parts of the world and by such wealthy and generous philanthropists as Mn. Andrew Carnegie and Mr. Edwin Gixn. International friendships are being promoted by the frequent; exchange of visits between representative groups of citizens, as well as by the international Congresses of all kinds, which are being held year by year in increasing numbers. All these stepsofficial and otherwise—towards peace are parts of a great movement or tendency which appears to ba still operating strongly, but anyone who imagines with Mr. Holt that the world will shortly reconstruct itself politically on the model of the United States does not fully take account of the antipathies, the jealousies, the patriotisms, the ambitions, and the conflicting interests which are still powerful among the older and less fortunately situated nations.