Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[graphic]
[ocr errors]

H.R.H. PRINCE ARTHUR OF CONNAUGHT.
H. M. THE QUEEN. H.R.H. THE DUCHESS OF CONNAUGHT.

H.R.H. PRINCESS MARGARET OF CONNAUGHT.
H.R.H. THE DUKE OF YORK.
H.R.H. THE DUCHESS OF YORK. H.R.H. PRINCE ALBERT OF YORK.
H.H. PRINCESS ARIBERT OF ANHALT.. H.R.H. PRINCESS VICTORIA OF YORK.

H.R.1. PRINCESS HENRY OF BATTENBERG.

H.H. PRINCESS ENA OF BATIENDUPG.

H.H. PRINCESS VICTORIA OF SCHLESWIG-HOLSTRIN.
H.H. PRINCE MAURICE OF BATTENB".

[graphic]

H.R. H. PRINCESS PATRICIA OF CONNAUGHT

H.R.H. PRINCE EDWARD OF YORK.
H.H. PRINCE LEOPOLD OF BATTENBERG.

H.H. PRINCE ALEXANDER OF BAITENBERG.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

JUN 26 1899

THE HAGUE, June 1st, 1899.

CAMBIOS that more human Things beings in the British Empire are, Great and Small. interested in the fact that Holocauste broke his leg in running for the Derby yesterday than in the proceedings of the Conference at the Hague. The amount of public interest in an event is often in an inverse ratio to its importance. It is certainly true that the Roman populace was more interested in the results of the races in the Circus Maximus on a certain Friday nineteen hundred years ago, than they were in the execution of a certain malefactor of Nazareth by order of the Procurator of Judæa. But mankind had not advanced very far before even the very dullest discovered that the latter was of much more importance than any number of records or results in the circus. So it will be with the Conference at the Hague. It was opened without fanfaronade, the drums and cymbals were mute, and at none of its sittings has there been anything to catch the eye of the groundlings. Nevertheless, it seems likely that the opening of the Conference will become one of the red-letter days in the history of the progress of mankind; and that the Huis ten Bosch will become one of the pilgrim shrines of the world, as the cradle of the idea of the federation of mankind.

The Parliament of

The Parliament of Peace met on the 18th of May, when proceedings were opened in complimentary Peace. speeches by the Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs, and M. de Staal, the first delegate of Russia. The latter was then placed in the chair, and on the following Saturday he delivered his opening speech, which for some strange reason, that the curious. have been delving for ever since, it was decided to withhold from the Press. Subsequently, by one of those inevitable indiscretions which always occur in such circumstances, a more or less mutilated report was published, with the result that every one is wondering what objection there could have been to making known the full text. The Conference then divided itself into three committees, which again divided themselves into four sub-sections. The first, dealing with the question of disarmament, naturally divided itself into naval and military committees. The second, which was charged with the consideration of the laws of war, also divided up into the first, which dealt with the application of the Geneva Convention to

naval warfare; and the second, the legalisation of the recommendation of the Conference of Brussels. The third and most important, which was devoted to Arbitration and Mediation, no sooner began business than it appointed a sub-committee consisting wholly of the representatives of the great Powers, with the exception of one delegate from Switzerland and one from Belgium. These committees have been in session ever since. The proceedings have all been in secret-so secret, indeed, that the Conference has not thought it is warranted in providing a stenographer even for the official minutes. The official communications, even to the members of the Conference, have been miserably inadequate; but, thanks to the discreet indiscretion of delegates, the telegrams in the newspapers were frequently more full and always more interesting than the official protocol, issued under seal to the delegates themselves.

Minor Matters.

The first fortnight in the Conference was chiefly devoted to the fashioning of machinery, and to the solemn. burial of the proposals put forward by Russia for the limitation of explosives and the arrest of inventions. All the proposals brought forward by Russia, including the prohibition of the use of balloons for dropping explosives from the clouds, were opposed by England. Unanimity was not obtained, therefore, on any single point, excepting the unanimity with which the Russian proposal was rejected to forbid the adoption by any army of any better rifle than that with which it is at present armed. This was, after discussion, abandoned even by its authors. The weightier matter of the arrest of expenditure on naval and military armaments has not yet been brought forward. In the second section the proposal to revise the rules of the Geneva Convention for land war was abandoned, it being decided that the question should be considered by a special conference to be summoned at an early date, at which all the Powers which signed the Geneva Convention shall be represented. The proposal to forbid the capture of private property in war time on sea as on land was informally mooted at a private conference of the first delegates, but owing to the opposition of France and Italy, who appear to have made up their minds against any such measure, and the indecision of the British Government, which has not made up its mind, and therefore objects to

[ocr errors]

discussing the matter in this Conference, there is no prospect of this question being raised and settled

this year.

The

Great Result of the Conference.

Every one seems to be agreed that the one solid gain which will result from the meeting of this Conference is the establishment of a permanent board of arbitration. The Russians hovered between M. Martens' scheme and that of M. de Staal, only deciding at the last moment to let M. Martens lead with his elabsiste recommendations for a board of mediation and investigation as a method of avoiding war. M. Martens proposed that the Powers should enter into an agreement, binding themselves to recognise certain classes of disputes to be subjects of obligatory arbitration. These subjects relate chiefly to questions of law, questions of monetary damages, and questions as to the interpretation of various kinds of conventions, such as posts, telegraphs, copyright, patents, international railways, international rivers and transoceanic canals. M. Martens' project for international commissions of investigation is simply a phrase for describing arbitrations in which both litigants do not bind themselves in advance to accept the decision of the commission. The Russian scheme, which was held in reserve, simply provided for a permanent tribunal of, say, five arbitrators of the first rank, who would be in permanent session for a term of three or five years, and who, if no arbitrations were pending, would occupy themselves in the task of codifying international law. It is calculated that from an average of the cases heard in the last ten years there are quite sufficient arbitrations to keep the arbitrators busy.

A Russian Scheme.

The idea of the Russian scheme is that each Power should nominate an international jurist of the first rank, and pay him, say, £10,000 a year for the period during which he was on duty. As there are twenty-five Powers represented at the Conference, each one of the great Powers would be asked to select its best man for the purpose, while the smaller Powers would nominate one for each group of three or five. From these picked international jurists five would be selected, either by alphabetical order or by lot, or by any other method that commends itself to the wisdom of the Conference. They would be constituted into a permanent tribunal before which any disputes might be brought. At the end of three or five years the Conference might reassemble to consider the working of the

system, and to nominate five judges for another term of office. The first five would be eligible for re-election. Under this system there would be no need to define what subjects are or are not fit for reference to the Court. Any two Powers might bind themselves to refer any or all the disputes which arise between them to this tribunal. Or an two nations might decide to invoke its assistance without having entered into any formal agreement to do so. This scheme is much the simplest; and it would not be surprising if, in some modified form, it should meet with the approval of the Conference.

The British Proposal.

Owing to the decision of the Russians to keep back their scheme for a tribunal, an opening was offered to Sir Julian Pauncefote, of which the British delegate availed himself by announcing his intention to propose the formation of a permanent tribunal of arbitration. Sir Julian's scheme begins with the constitution of an international bureau somewhat on the lines of the bureaus now sitting at Berne for the regulation of posts, telegraphs, and railways. It would be the duty of this bureau to keep a roster or panel of judges, two of whom should be nominated by each of the Powers represented at the Conference, but none of whom would sit in permanence. There would be the roster of persons nominated as eligible for the post of arbitrator, and from these last the bureau of arbitration would select from time to time, when cases arose for arbitration, judges for the arbitral court. By these means it was thought to avoid the necessity of keeping the court sitting in permanence, and at the same time avoiding the evils which arise when courts of arbitration are nominated ad hoc. The disadvantage of Sir Julian Pauncefote's scheme is that the persons eligible for arbitrators would not make arbitration the business of their lives for years; their real business would be private, not public, and they would only lay down their private practice from time to time when occasion arose--that is to say, the international part of their duties would be an interference with the chief business of their lives. Hence the needless delays would continue which have done so much to bring arbitration into disrepute.

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »