INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION.

Evening Star, Issue 7827, 7 February 1889, Page 2

INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION.

A lecture on the subject of settling international disputes by arbitration was given last evening in Knox Churcli by Mr William Jones, late secretary to the Peace Society of Great Britain. There was a large attendance and Dr Stuart presided, while among those ou the platform were the Revp. R. Waddell, Dutton, and M. Evans, Messrs K. Ramsay, G. Bell, Lee Smith, J. W. Jago, A. H. Ross, M.H.R., and W. D. Stewart, M.H.R.

The proceedings were opened by the singing of the 392 nd hymn, ' Oh, for the peace which floweth as a river,' after which a prayer was offered up by the Rev. Mr Dutton.

The Chairvtan said he had great pleasure in introducing to the audience Mr Jones, who had just arrived from England. Ho was a man who had spent his life in promoting the ioterests of peace and charity, and a man who would assuredly be well worth listening to. They would all rejoice when standing armies would no longer be a necessity. He himself had felt strongly on this subject since the time when—in the year 1856—h0 was commissioned to meet tho Scottish regiments returning from the Crimea. He there met men who had been injured in that grievous war—a war by which no single country engaged in it had benefited.

Mr Jones, who was received with hearty applause, commenced his lecture by saying that he had just come from a trip to the West Coast Sounds, and that from what he had seen there and from what he had so far seen of Dunedin and of the colony generally he could address his hearers ?s citizens of no mean city, and could congratulate the colonists generally on having in this country a most goodly heritage. Coming to the subject of his address, he would ask them to take a glance at the present state of affairs in Europe and its complications—complications in which he hoped his hearers would never be mixed up. Straws showed which way the wind blew, and so apparently trifling incidents often gave signs of what might happen in connection with international matters. When he was last in Paris he was strolling through that noble square the Place de la Concorde, in which arc erected statues representative of different cities of importance, and he noticed that the statue representing the lost city of Straabun* had been selected by the "Patriotic League" for an annual decoration. It bore on it a large wreath with the fatal date " Juillet 15, 1870," and the very ominous words " La revanche jamais!' That was to say "Revenge—think of it always ; speak of it never !'' He I well remembered seeing that beautiful city reduced to heaps of rubbish, and its inhabitants taking refuge in their cellars in order to escape the bursting and devastating shells of the German artillery. So terrible was the cannouade that many women actually died of fright. Another inscription was on the statue—or rather it was only a part of an inscription, for it was unfinished—it consisted of simply two figures, thus "18—." This required no explanation ; one could see it all—the one great thought that was agitating the hearts of the French people was that they were contemplating and looking forward to the day when they would obtain their revenge, and again call Strasburg their own. Alsace - Lorraine had becomo a new Veuetia, a new Poland, suffering under a foreign yoko. France was now a vast entrenched camp, which could bo defended at a week's notice by a million of armed men, and in a month by three millions. The French Press, or portions of it, spoke of France as the " inexorable enemy " of Germany, and such it would ever be ; but while the Press and the population of the cities generally were imbued with this warlike and revengeful spirit, ho was bound to admit that the peasantry were strongly inclined for peace. And not only the peasantry, but . country residents generally such as provincial mayors, doctors, schoolmasters, and the like. He had frequently asked such as these: " Were you of thoßo who in 1870 cried ' A Berlin !'" and the invariable reply was: "Ah, no; we never wanted war; we who longed for peace are the greatest sufferers by war," The desire for revenge that possessed many of the French people was after all nothing but the direct legacy of war. When he was in Metz, after the surrender of that city, ministering to the wants of the distressed, the lady who owned the largest mansion in the city placed it at his disposal. In the course of conversation with her he remarked that the war had been carried on with as much humanity as possible, and her reply was that, that notwithstanding, she and the people would die before they would give up their demand for revenge. He was speaking once to a prominent Prussian, a cousin of Prince Bismarck, on the subject of the taking of the two provinces, and he said: "Two hundred years ago they were part and parcel of the German Empire ; we will re-Germanise them." He (the speaker) asked how they would do that, and the reply was: " We will bring up the children in our schools, and in fifteen years' time you will find the people as much German as they now are French." He listened to this, but did not believe it; and on going back to Alßace, just fifteen years afterwards, what did he find? The feeling against Germany was as bitter and as strong as ever, and every member that it sent to Parliament was directly opposed to Bismarck—they were called the "irreconcilables." As another instance of the kind of feeling induced by war let them look in the diary of so noble a prince as the last German Emperor, and what would they find ? The_se words: " France has become our natural enemy, and it is our business to enfeeble her." Then, again, the great military tactician, Count Von Moltke, said: " Germany must stand under arms for fifty years, to hold what it has now gained." Bismarck himself said : " This last war was but child's play compared with what the next one will be !" When France taxes her people to add 100,000 men to her army, Germany follows suit, then Russia, then Austria, and then Italy. "Child's play " ! Let them consider the phrase. It meant that about some 500,000 human beings, including military and civilians, would be slaughtered or reduced to a state of misery. A war of extermination a bleeding to death—would be the result of continued increases of armament. The London * Times' estimated that thero were now 12,000,000 armed men in Europe, and the result of that was that no well-dressed man could go through the streets of a Continental town without having numberless hands extended to him for alms. AH through the country districts they would see poor, overworked people, owing to the vast numbers drained away for purposes of war. x At present, he saw it stated, 5,000 Italians at a time were leaving their country for Rio Janeiro—escaping from the starvation and taxation for military purposes that oppressed them at home. Then look at the mighty exodus from Germany to the United States, where hardy men were heartily welcomed. Such an exodus was a glorious thing for America, and it also meant salvation for the poor emigrants; but it was a bad thing for the older countries, who were simply driving away the thews

and sinews of their population. Look at Russia she is mainly agricultural, and about one-third of her population or» "proletariats," which means that they are poor, and which latter means, in Russia, that they do not know where they will get their next meal. The poor of Russia are fast dying out—their death rate was appalling. He did not know what the death rate of Dunedinwas.—(DrStuart: Tenin 1,000.) Well, then, in London, unhealthy London, as some supposed it to be, the death rate was not 20 in 1,000, but in Russia, it was no less than 63 in 1,000 ! He had a very great respect for that Russian Emperor —Alexander ll.—who conceived and carried out the great scheme of the liberation of the serfs; but even that great boon had become practically neutralised by the increase of conscription in order to keep up | the present enormous standing army. Universal dissatisfaction was caused throughout Europe by the heavy war taxation and the exactions made for military purposes. Disraeli was right indeed when lie said " Europe is honeycombed with secret societies," for human beings could not bear the oppressions that encumbered them, and the result was that they became as clay in the hands of political agitators. The one idea with European rulers was: How many men can be extracted from the life of industry and thrown into that of idleness ?—for idle and unpro ductive a soldier's life was, after all. Let them now take a glance at the realities of war itself. In 1870-71 it was his duty, being in charge of the relief fund so liberally sub-

scribed in England, to visit scenes of battles and sieges. He saw the field of Gravelotte —the most tremendous battle of the war—where the sun rose on August 20 and shone on 350,000 armed men, of whom at sunset 27,000 were corpses, while countless thousands were wounded, smashed, or disfigured out of all recognition. The French Army went away to the plains of the Moselle, around Metz, Wie strongest place of arms in the whole world. From its situation no cannon ball could be fired into Metz ; it never surrendered to force, but to famine. He was permitted to pass through the German lines and into Metz, and he was thus able to see the actual condition of the two armies. Fancy 170,000 fighting men shut in by a ring of steel—shut in so closely that, as a German officer said to him, " not even a mouse can go in or out without our permission." Inside the city he saw the flower of the French Army, the Imperial Guard, under Bazaine, lying about in the mud, their clothes and beards clotted with mud, their only food a few small biscuits

and horseflesh. They were in very truth a mass of human misery—hungry, fevcrsmittcn, and famine-stricken. To meet the look of a hungry, starving man was, he might tell them, terrible—it was a look as of insanity, and the expression was most horrible. The men were dying away like rotten sheep, carried off by dysentery, a disease that created much havoc in the German ranks also. On October 29 the fortress thiew open its gates, and a magnificent sight it w«s, he must admit, to see Prince Fredc; iuk Charles and his brilliant staff enter in with music playing, and the army glittering with all the pomp of war. For three whole days the walls were to be heard reverberating with the ccaselesß tramp, tramp, tramp of the 200,000 men who had been entrenched outside the city. But there was a reverse to this picture. The French army was in a state of awful misery from privation and disease a dreadful form of smallpox, called "confluent pox," had seized on them, and its effect was to render the victim's face repulsive in the extreme. Fever also increased—first it was typhoid, then typhus, and then it developed into black or livid typhus—a form so dangerous that no cases were allowed to go into the hospitals; so these sufferers were put into railway cars in the streets and squares, where they could be seen writhing about in straw, all with a ghastly yelkivv inflorescence of countenance that rendered them most repulsive to look at. " Water ! water !" they gasped ; but there was no man to give them a drop, although they were all dying, and there was no friend at hand to soothe their last moments or whisper a last word of consolation in their ears. Let bis hearers think of it—these human beings were abandoned to die a worse death than that of " the brute that perisheth." That was war in its reality; not as they read of it in the glowing pages of the historian or in the writings of war correspondents, but war stripped of all its glory and depicted by an eye-witness. Then surely they would agree with him that there mußt be some better way to settle disputes than by such means. There was indeed a better way, and that was one that had been in vogue for many years. Since tho battle of Waterloo no less then sixty cases of international dispute had been settled by arbitration, and in every one of these cases the decision had been loyally accepted and carried out. Let them look at the Alabama case. This was the great point in that case: there was not the slightest hint at force, or war would have resulted; but wise statesmen were at the head on both side 3. He called that the cardinal case, it hud been said that England was imposed on in that matter, and that a quantity of money over and above the claims remained in the hands of America, but that was untrue—no balance remained in her hands. It was said also that England was robbed of three millions of money. Well, that was a large sum of monev, but a war with Ameiica would have cost England L 300,000,000, so that, as Beaconsfield said, the three millions was only a flea bite. But who could estimate the fruition of that arbitration ? The relations of the two nations had been friendly and courteous ever since, a special instance of the kindly feeling that had been engendered being the universal feeling of sorrow throughout England when President Garfield feel at the hand of a miscreant and apsassin. The effect produced was to join together the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race, and he might truly say that every bit of rancorous feeling between England and America was buried in the grave of Garfield. Queen Victoria sent across a beautiful wreath of flowers to be placed on his coffin, with a sympathetic message to Mrs Garfield, and this touch from the widowed heart on one side of the Atlantic to the widowed heart on the other did not stay there, it penetrated t> the hearts of all the American people. Europe might be on the brink of war. When he was last in Germany a friend told him that Vou Moltke had only to enter his cabinet and touch a button to cause 200,000 men to spriDg up, armed to the teeth, to form the first line of Germany's defence. France was in a similar state ; and, he would ask, was there anything dignified in the attitude of those two nations —like two mastiff dogs straining at their chains ? He would ask them: which was the right, which the noble, which the prudent, which the common sense nay, which was the Christian way of settling disputes but that of arbitration ? That was the higher and nobler way adopted by England and America, whe resolved to settle their disputes by arbitration rather than by war. The lecturer was frequently applauded most warmly during the course of his address, and received quite an ovation on resuming his seat. On the motion of the Rev. Mr Evans, seconded by Mr Lee Smith, a hearty vote of thanks was passed to Mr Jones for his highly-interesting lecture. The motion was also expressive of sympathy with the principle of international arbitration and with the efforts of the Peace Society. In acknowledging the compliment, Mr Jones said that in Hobart, Melbourne, and Adelaide—in which places he had delivered lectures—local peace associations had been formed. A simple form of declaration was adopted—not a pledge. He did not know if one would be started in Dunedin, but he would be glad if it were. In conclusion, he had to thank Dr Stuart and the deacons of the church for the free use of the noble edifice in which they met. The benediction was pronounced by the Rev. R. Waddell.

As the audience left the building the organist played as a voluntary the 'Pastoral symphony' from ' The Creation.'