THE PEACEMAKER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2985, 31 May 1911, Page 89

THE PEACEMAKER.

KING EDWARD AT THE HAGUE

A SENSATIONAL INTERVIEW

(From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, April 7

On© of the most important of the many important interviews which Mr Stead has contributed to the press of Great Britain is published this week. It is with the Marquis do Soveral, the late Ambassador in London of Portugal, and the close personal friend of King Edward. The Marquis was a member of the Interparliamentary Conference in London in 1906. Arbitration was then in the air. The British people and Government had cordially endorsed the proposals, and when the Peace Conference at The Hague opened in tho following year it was natural to expect that the British delegates would have stood sponsors for the scheme. " But in the early stages of the conference," says the Marquis, "the British delegation amazed us all by offering a stolid opposition to every scheme of univer* sal arbitration. Their note was on© of cynical despair. The conference in the eyes of some of them at least was a sorry farce, 60, plucking up my courage with both my hands, I. in the name of little Portugal, introduced the proposal of the Inter-parliamentary Union into the conference."

The Americans, I think, had moved in the same direction before you acted ? " The American proposal was for a general treaty of obligatory arbitration, covering all disputes excepting those affecting honour, vital interests, and the independence of the State, or the interests of third Powers. There was, before these four loopholes, an open door of escape from the obligation to arbitrate in the shape of the condition that each appeal to arbitration must be sanctioned by the American Senate. The Portuguese proposal declared that the Powers agreed to forswear the use of any of the four loopholes in certain specified cases." What happened ? " Baron Marschall von Bieberstein astonished everyone by (declaring in a memorable speech that resounded through the world that the eight years which had elapsed since the first conference had led Germany to abandon her objection > to obligatory arbitration. He declared himself without reserve in favour of obligatory arbitration, and severely criticised the American proposal because it was not obligatory enough. There were too many loopholes. One's delight at this resounding declaration was all the greater because the natural deduction was that Germany would naturally support the Portuguese proposition which stopped the loopholes in about 20 different subjects." What was the attitude of the British delegates? . . " Stolid unsympathetic opposition, replied the Marquis de Soveral. "I was in despair. I had lived so long in England that I had learned to regard it as a second fatherland, aiid I realised as no one in London seemed able to do, the ghastly consequences that would follow if Germany were allowed to wrest the leadership of the world in the cause of peace from the hands of England. It seemed to me that something must be done, and that at once, to pull things straight. There was only one man who could save the situation, and that man was King Edward. I decided to rush over to London and see the King. " The King received me at once. In a few brief sentences I set forth the situation. King Ed-ward realised the gravity of the position at once. ' The instructions of our delegates,' ho said, 'must be. changed.' He gave me brief, but practical, directions on which I was only too glad to act. I cannot go into details here. It is sufficient to say that the instructions were changed, and the British delegates, much to the chagrin of some of them, were instructed to support what they had hitherto opposed. I willingly handed oyer the conduct of the Portuguese proposition to the hands of Sir Edward Fry. The honour of England was saved. Britain and America were once n;or~ brought into harmony, and the kwlershirj in the cause of obligatory arbitration' was restored to the Englishspeaking world solely bv the statesmanlike intervention of King Edward." How did Germany take this sudden change of front? • "By a change of front quite as startling. Within a week after Baron Maifrchalf's manifesto in favour of obligatory arbitration, my colleague, M. de Kr'iege, at the first meeting of the committee appointed to consider the Portuguese proposition, declared categorically that ' the German delegation cannot give its support to any prb ;ect tending to establish obligatory and universal arbitration for all questions of a juridical nature or relating to tihe interpretation of treaties.' To that attitude the German delegates adhered to the end." Then do von think Germany will always be opposed to obligatory arbitration? "Who knows? Those who change front once can change front again. And, in justice to Baron Marschall, he always maintained that, while he was unalterably opposed to a world-wide treaty, on the ground that distinctions must be made between Powers that ere at different stages of evolution, he always asserted that Germany was ready to make separate treaties of obligatory arbitration with any Powers which she recognised as on her own level on subjects which the-" considered ripe for such treatment."