Hague Conferences

“ The League of Nations was then not even a phrase, but the plan that was forming in Colonel House's mind was at least some scheme for permanent international coöperation. For several years Germany had been the nation which had proved the greatest obstacle to such international friendliness and arbitration. The Kaiser had destroyed both Hague Conferences as influential forces in the remaking of the world; and in the autumn of 1913 he had taken on a more belligerent attitude than ever. ”

“ Not many years after the organization of these first societies societies in one form or another with like purposes were forming in all parts of practically all civilized countries; and it is largely to the influences these societies exerted that The Hague conferences owe whatever success they attained. ”

“ At first it seemed as if the second alternative might be adopted, for these were the days of the Hague Conferences; but the development of events during the first fourteen years of the century showed with increasing clearness that one of the new world-states was resolute to make a bid for world-supremacy, and the gradual maturing of this challenge, culminating in the Great War, constitutes the supreme interest of these years. ”

“ Hague Conferences, which may be said to be and to have created an entirely new factor in the domain of International Law. Two of the conventions adopted in 1899 completed work which had already been commenced long before, viz. those on the usages of war and on the adaptation of the Geneva Convention to naval war. The third established methods for the pacific settlement of international difficulties, including the formation of the Hague Court of Arbitration. ”

“ Eventually the Washington Conference for the Limitation of Armament will be judged by what it contributes to this union of nations, exactly as all its predecessors will be judged. The Washington Conference is but one in a long chain of international undertakings looking to peace. It is built on the experience of many different men, of many different countries, running back literally for centuries. Its immediate 226predecessor was the Hague Conferences and tribunal and the Paris Conference with its resultant League of Nations. ”

“ The Nations have also carefully abstained from undertaking any obligation to use force to uphold the benevolent rules and agreements of general application that have been recorded at Hague Conferences ”

“ Perhaps later it will be permitted me to labor for the great cause that brought my father to The Hague.”
“I see; a new ambition is awaking, in a new field! Remain faithful to this impulse, and may you sometime by means of it become a judge in the International Arbitration Court or Swedish Minister of Peace!”
“Oh, how glad I should be!”
315Andrew D. White urges me, in case I have the opportunity, to oppose those pessimistic prejudices which have gone abroad regarding the Conference, and which render more difficult the possibility of further work and the assembling of new conferences. ”

“ The conferences of The Hague in favour of an international agreement for the maintenance of peace were the direct result of the initiative of the British Prime Minister, who foresaw the frightful consequences for Humanity of the enormous development of militarism by the German Empire. ”

“ I believe, and the more I think it over the more I believe, that the Conference cannot help doing some good—more than is expected of it. The members will feel the revelation of the living 239world, the wishes of humanity, and the nearness of the terrible dangers that threaten Europe.
None of the governments represented at The Hague will be willing to expose themselves to the unpopularity, the dissatisfaction, the ridicule, of the people, which would be evoked by a failure or a wretched, disappointing result. ”

“ It seemed also that some useful and interesting work might be done to forward the common interests and ideals of the United States and the Netherlands—that brave, liberty-loving nation from which our country learned and received so much in its beginnings—and in particular that there might be opportunity for co-operation in the Far East, where the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines are next-door neighbors. But the chief thing that drew me to Holland was the desire to promote the great work of peace which had been begun by the International Peace Conferences at The Hague. ”

“ We made no attempt to arrange for a particularly democratic 370assemblage, for in the first place the common people would not understand French, and in the second place we were particularly desirous that the political, court, and aristocratic circles, which are accustomed to look so superciliously cold upon the peace cause and the Hague Conference, should for once have a chance to hear an explanation of it from the lips of a man who was himself a diplomat and a politician and an aristocrat, and who had taken a prominent part in the work of the Hague Conference. ”

“ The contemporary world is either indifferent or unfriendly in its attitude toward the Hague Conference.
We remained at home only a short time. After about three weeks we started forth again, this time for Norway. Invitations from the management of the Interparliamentary Conference which was to meet there from the first to the sixth of August had come to us, as well as to Herr von Bloch, requesting us to attend 328the deliberations and festivities as guests of honor. We did not require a second invitation. A journey to the Northland, what a holiday! ”

“ This meeting is called together at the initiative of one of the most powerful sovereigns of Europe, and after the assent to its principal object has been obtained from all the other governments; and almost all countries, great and small, with very few exceptions, have declared their agreement and are here represented.
The book was begun in 1895 and was published by Pierson at the beginning of 1897, so that the words here cited cannot be a reminiscence of the Hague Peace Conference, which was first summoned in 1898 by “one of the most powerful sovereigns of Europe” ”

“ The person who formerly conducted the Parliament of England, with so much honour to himself and satisfaction to his guests, was an Englishman; but he retired from business shortly after the expulsion of the stadtholder, and the consequent removal of British subjects from the Hague. His successor, with every possible disposition to gratify those who frequent his house, has not the ability; for, alas! the Hague is no longer the resort of the wealthy and luxurious from all parts of Europe, and by such guests alone is an inn to be maintained in splendour. ”

“ But there have always been men, with vision unaffected by martial glamour, who have foreseen in the logic of the world's history the inevitable end of war, and we have progressed now to a point where peace is the normal condition in international relationships. But it is an armed peace, founded on the false principle of suspicion and distrust, and we come now to consider the practical question of what the third Hague Conference can do to establish peace upon a firm and enduring foundation. ”

“ Just as the first Hague Conference of 1898 in reality achieved nothing more than a few secondary amendments to the law of nations, conformity with which was left completely to the fancy of the individual Powers, so the second Hague Conference will, it is highly probable, result in nothing further than a few general peace assertions and international arrangements which, when it comes to a war, will not outlive the first interchange of shots. ”

“ The note received generous applause, especially in the United States and Great Britain, the two foremost nations devoted to the arts of peace. The several governments agreed to participate in the proposed conference. The place selected was The Hague, the capital of the Netherlands, where the sessions opened on May 18, 1899.
Of all the great powers, the United States was the only one unreservedly in favor of an arrangement whereby war would be prevented. ”

“ A second peace conference was held at The Hague, June 15 to Oct. 19, 1907, at which forty-six powers, including Latin America and Norway, were represented by delegates. As in the case of the first conference, not all that was hoped for was accomplished. ”

“ But whereas the State is a settled institution, firmly established and completely organised, the Family of Nations is still in the beginning of its development. A settled institution and firmly established it certainly is, but it entirely lacks at present any organisation whatever. Such an organisation is, however, gradually growing into existence before our eyes. The permanent Court of Arbitration created by the First Hague Peace Conference, and the International Prize Court proposed by the Second Hague Peace Conference, are the first small traces of a future organisation. ”

“ As the seat of the executive government, and of the representative bodies, the Hague enjoys advantages which other towns of the republic do not possess; but these advantages are vastly inferior to the benefits which it derived from the stadtholder and his court, and most persons, even republicans, sorrowfully complain of its striking and rapid decay. ”

“ Here now is a task laid out for the Interparliamentary Union, namely, to develop further the work begun at The Hague.
At this writing—1908—however, that formula has not been found. Parliamentarians, with but few exceptions, when they are not in the Conference but in parliament, do nothing but consent, consent. The study of the problem was postponed from the first to the second and from the second to the third Hague Conference, and still it remains uninvestigated. Where there is no will, there is no way. ”

“ The time is approaching to which we are all looking forward with intense interest and anxious hope when the delegates of your various nationalities find themselves once again at The Hague, there to renew their labors in the cause of peace. ”

“ The Hague conference was the first ever called to discuss the means of establishing peace without reference to any particular war. Twenty-six nations were represented, including all the leading powers.
The conference was called by the present Emperor of Russia, August 24, 1898, and is destined to be forever memorable from having realized Cruce's ideal, and given to the world its first permanent court for the settlement of international disputes. The last century is in future ages to remain famous as having given birth to this high court of humanity. ”

“ The institutions of The Hague will be for it well nigh a sine qua non at success, and there must be measures for compelling a resort to them in disputes between members of the league and in those arising between any of them and States outside of it. Such provisions as have been contained in the best constitutions that have been suggested for new leagues will be needed in one that may evolve out of one of the existing combinations. ”

“ Apart from all moral or sentimental considerations, apart from the fact that Britain had at the Hague Conference been the warm and effective advocate of peaceful methods of settling disputes between nations, it is her truest interest to set an example of fairness, legality and sincerity. ”

“ The second Hague conference, of 1907, besides revising the convention made by the first conference, of 1899, as to the laws of war on land, produced new conventions, dealing respectively with the opening of hostilities; neutral rights and duties in land warfare ”

“ Diplomatic activities give many signs of a growing appreciation of the value of reciprocal agreements for mutual advantage, and the Hague Conference is a concrete manifestation of a continuing process of social evolution that finds its beginnings and its interpretation far below human history in lower organic nature. ”

“ But in the midst of the warring diplomatists at The Hague one could discover none of that glow, that fervour of devotion to peace, which distinguished the early Quakers and is still felt among a few fine enthusiasts. The first duty imposed upon every representative at The Hague was to get everyone to do as much as possible for peace, except himself. It is not so that the world is moved. ”

“ Their meeting will be a wholly different affair from the Hague Conference, where the chief aim of one Great Power was to have as little done as was decently possible, and that of some lesser ones to magnify their own importance at all costs. When difficulties are faced by capable men not divided on any fundamental principle, and determined to reach a working agreement, they have already lost half their terrors. ”

“ France and Belgium and Italy are too deeply in the affair, or without sufficient moral prestige, for a revolutionary initiative in international relationship.
There is, however, a possible third source from which the proposal for a world congress might come, with the support of both neutrals and belligerents, and that is The Hague. Were there a man of force and genius at The Hague now, a man speaking with authority and not as the scribes, he might thrust enormous benefits upon the world. ”

“ Germany is a proven perjurer not only in the eyes of the nations at war with her, but also in the regard of the forty-four countries signatory of the Hague Convention. However, we have never heard that a single one of these nations lodged a protest against her actions. The Hague Convention has been torn into shreds, and not one of its signers has entered the slightest protest.
Is the next society of nations to be modeled on the same principles? Is the next society of nations going to draw up articles of the same kind as the Hague society? ”