As to Clause XIV., giving the High Court power to arbitrate
for States which do not belong to the Union, perhaps it should
be limited to States which notoriously cannot afford to con-
tribute to the Common Fund, owing to weak credit and
heavy taxation. Otherwise, its effect might be to keep
States from joining the Union. The inclusion or modification
of this clause or one similar would probably depend on the
number of Great Powers and Minor States which joined the

D 2



36 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE.

League at its origin. Probably no Peace Union, were one
inaugurated, would wish to enter into competition with
the permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague (see Clause X.,
Ssction 2), though under certain auspicious circumstances
the two institutions might be amalgamated by a process
of mutual absorption.

It remains now to defend the extension of arbitration
to cases involving " honour or vital interests," of which
the Hague Court is debarred from taking cognisance by what
is known as " the Roumanian reservation." One such case
has already been submitted to arbitration by Great Britain,
namely, the attack on British fishermen by the Russian
fleet at the Dogger Bank.* For the protection of her subjects,
and the vindication of their wrongs is the nicest point of honour
to Great Britain, who has long responded all over the world
to the plea, " Civis Bntannicus sum," raised by subject or
dependent, however lowly. Whatever may be the future
of this new kind of arbitration, it has averted in the present
a war which might have cost Great Britain much blood and
treasure, and could not have brought her any glory unless
Russia had received support, in which case war might have
raged all over the world. The experiment is fully justified
and has resulted in a signal triumph for the cause of peace.
It is especially valuable because it corrects the current
impression produced or strengthened by the Roumanian
proviso that great States will never submit important political
issues to decision by arbitration. This idea is unsound,
but is liable to be confused with the perfectly sound opinion
quoted from a letter to the Times, November 21, 1904 : —

" It is beginning to be realised that what are called
' general ' treaties of arbitration, by which States would

* From a letter to the Times, November 24th, 1904. " It may
well be that disputant Powers may at any time choose to agree to employ
the machinery suggested by those articles, or something resembling
it, in cases of a far more serious kind than those to which alone the
Convention ventured to make its recommendation applicable ; and this
is the course which seems to have been followed by the Powers interested
with reference to the recent lamentable occurrence in the North Sea."



SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 37

bind themselves beforehand to submit to external
decision questions which might involve high political
issues, will not be made between Powers of the first
importance ; also, that such treaties, if made, would be
more hkely to lead to fresh misunderstandings than to
secure the peaceful settlement of disputed questions.

"T. E. Holland.

" Oxford, November 21."

By " decision " I infer that " final irrevocable decision "
is meant. But the clause of the report on the Dogger Bank
incident which dechnes to pass judgment on Admiral
Rodjestvensky's capacity and humanity, together with
the Press comments on it, seems to reveal a prevalent feeling
that arbitrators' decisions, even in the case of a single Com-
mission of Inquiry, not arranged for by any general or special
Treaty, are not hkely to be accepted as final by great Powers
as a matter of course. A moment's intelligent reflection
suffices to convince a Briton that voluntarily and deliberately
to put all one's eggs into the basket of a single verdict would
be sheer insanity. A Government cannot be expected to
run risks from which ever}^ British citizen is immune. Every
judicial decision in Great Britain is subject to revision, and
with respect to criminal trials it has recently been proved
that the Crown and its departments of Government should
have their powers of revision supplemented by re-trials. In
the case of arbitration as now understood, since there is no
opportunity of external revision. States must retain in their
own hands the right of revision. The exercise of this right
is and must be an appeal to arms, unless diplomacy find some
method of peaceful settlement by renewing negotiations at
the last moment.

The scheme propounded above does not invite Governments
to surrender this inalienable right, but merely to enter into
such voluntary agreements as will offer inducements towards
refraining from the hasty or light-hearted exercise thereof,
and will entail a known and limited risk of pecuniary loss if,



38 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE.

after arbitration, they inconvenience their fellow States by
the exercise of their right of appeal to the arbitrament of
war.

The Roumanian reservation is probably a clumsy and
sweeping way of recognising infey alia the indisputable fact
that some outrages have to be met by immediate counter-
attack. For instance, in a case of indisputable violation
of territory, it would be absurd to give the intruder time
to advance and entrench and bring up supports. In cases,
however, where delay is possible, arbitration is of service,
if only by prolonging delay and so affording opportunity
for calm consideration. The maintenance of just and
honourable peace is a question of most vital interest to all
commonwealths, and the comparative importance of other
vital interests should, if possible, be determined by calm
and impartial discussion. The only people who benefit by
war are proprietors of journals, war correspondents, soldiers
and navy men, manufacturers of war material, successful
dealers in contraband goods, and fraudulent contractors
with their official hirelings. These have had a long and highly
profitable career, and it is high time their interests were
subordinated to the prosperity of the masses and their social
and moral advancement, to secure which it is indispensable
to cultivate habits of peace.

I cannot see that the idea formulated by the Inter-
Parliamentary Union at St. Louis last year " of establishing
an International Congress to convene periodically for the
discussion of International questions " would prove satis-
factory. If the members of an International High Court
decided upon the advisability of making legal changes, which
demanded ratification by the Powers concerned, they would,
of course, ask their respective Governments to arrange a
Congress, and they would do the same no doubt whenever
they agreed that complications would be settled by treaty
more conveniently than by legal process.

The scheme has been purposely left unencumbered by
details (which could in any actual International Peace Union
be easily filled in, some of them offering two or more



SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 39

alternatives for choice), so that the general idea might
stand out more clearly.

For instance, the mode of appointing the President of
the High Court, and the term of his office, could be settled
in various ways. The quahfications for trustees and
arbitrators have been advisedly left to the imagination cf
my readers, though I am convinced that naval and military
officers should be excluded, notwithstanding the admirable
way in which the admirals of the Dogger Bank Commission
discharged their duties. In fact, while trained lawyers and
judges can master technicahties of any kind, men of no other
profession have enough practice in methods of juridical
inquiry to make them satisfactory arbitrators. The manners
and customs of courts-martial are sometimes peculiar, as is
illustrated by the British " ragging " case, and the French
Dreyfus case. Consequently, the appointment of officers
of either service as arbitrators on a High Court of Arbitration
would tend to lessen its authority and impair the public
confidence in its decisions. Moreover, professional fighters
cannot be above suspicion of not being sincerely devoted
to the cause of arbitration, or desirous of establishing it
firmly in public estimation. They would, therefore, probably
be much exposed to challenge, and their exclusion might be
ordained for the ostensible and reasonable purpose of avoiding
complications and saving time and labour, without any
reflection on their sincerity or ability to deal satisfactorily
with evidence. The High Court might employ military
or naval assessors (with or without power to deliver judgment)
in such technical cases as made it advisable.



CHAPTER III.



WAR HURTFUL TO NEUTRALS.

An International Peace Union would not only insure
peaceful Commonwealths against loss or damage inflicted
by war on neutral Powers, as has already been pointed out,
but also would act as a protector and promoter of the interests
of pacific States. As time goes on these interests are more
and more seriously and multifariously affected by warfare ;
so that organised opposition to the cult of Mars should be
arranged as soon as possible. The distresses and dangers of
neutrals, being continually on the increase, require prompt
reduction. The imminent solution of the problem of aerial
navigation makes immediate attention to the problem of
general pacification especially imperative.

The populations of neutral States would incur horrible
danger and terror, not to mention wounds, slaughter, and
destruction of property, if they realised the poet's vision and

" Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly
dew
From the nations' airy navies, grappling in the central blue."

Even in passing, aerial fleets might do damage uninten
tionally, even to the infliction of mutilation and death. If



SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 4 1

China went to war with ChiU about 1915 a Chinese airy
admiral might bombard Berhn or Washington, if his officers
should think they spied a Chihan aerial destroyer among a
squadron of aerial pleasure yachts. The Hague protest
against dropping explosives from balloons would hardly
apply.

Though the evils that neutrals know at the present time
are better than the unknown evils suggested by this appalling
prospect, they are certainly worse than they used to be half
a century ago, so much so as to make war a public nuisance to
the world at large, and to give States which are not directly
interested in a dispute Hkely to lead to hostihties a moral
right to protest against any breach of the peace.

Intercourse between all civilised peoples has been growing
so free and intimate that its interruption and dislocation in
any one quarter could not fail to cause multitudinous risks
and inconveniences in all quarters. Commerce is interfered
with and restricted, whereupon various industries are adversely
affected. Carriers lose not only freightage but fares, as the
area of travel is curtailed, and the disposition to wander
abroad is checked, while marine insurance rates have a tendency
to rise. Scientific and literary correspondence with savants
and scholars of the militant nations is decreased or suspended.
Money markets are disturbed. Foreign holders of the bonds
of the fighting States can only reahse at a loss.

In February last year there was a panic on the Paris
Bourse. Consols went below 87 per cent., prices rose generally,
and trade declined. The enormous development of
manufactures, trade, international finance, and international
hospitality has increased the number of persons liable to be
affected by foreign disturbances. Subjects of neutral States
resident in militant States are often exposed to risk and
unpleasantness, if not to actual harm and loss, while their
relatives and friends at home suffer serious anxiety. Neutral
holders of Russian securities are adversely affected by a
depreciation amounting to millions, with small prospect of
much recovery until several years have elapsed. These
views are advocated in the Scotsman, September 28, 1904 : —



42 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE.

" International law has never concerned itself
sufficiently about the rights of neutrals. The absence
of any proper accepted code of law regarding neutrals
did not cause serious trouble in the South African War.
The revolted States were enclosed as in a kraal by British
soil, and their relations with neutrals were negligible.
But the Russo-Japanese War has brought forward with
a sudden and surprising rapidity a number of vital
questions affecting neutrals that have never before
arisen, at least in such critical form. Nor is the reason
far to seek. In the old days the nations lived more
within themselves, and their wars only indirectly affected
their neighbours. To-day the interchange of goods
and of ideas is enormously developed, and the Powers
of the world have all an inter-relation in time of peace
which has never before been known. And when two
of the Powers fall out and go to war, the interference with
what may be called their peaceful intercourse with other
Powers not concerned in the quarrel is immediate, and
in many respects irksome and damaging. The laws
of behigerency are pretty well defined ; the rights of
neutrals are only vaguely established

Baron Descamps, who is Convener of an already
existing Committee of the Institute (of International
Law), which has the subject of neutrality under considera-
tion, appears to have emphasised the desirableness of
dealing with neutrality not as a negative subject,
but as a positive subject. That is to say, any
Conference should concern itself not so much with
the rights of neutrals arising out of war, as with
their rights in the preservation of peace. This
points to an expansion of the idea of conciliation
and arbitration."

A new class of dangers affecting the seamen and fishermen
of neutral States has arisen. They are now liable to be blown
up by stray torpedoes or drifting mines ; while no seagoing
vessel is now too small to alarm a battleship, and so draw
its fire.



SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE, 43

The increased speed of warships, by necessitating frequent
coahng, has augmented the risk of neutral Powers being
involved in any war between naval Powers. Even if no
neutrals are drawn into the war, breaches or alleged breaches
of international law, which seem almost inevitable, are
virtually an offence against the society of States.

The greater demand by combatants for high explosives
entails on neutral States the danger of terrible accidents,
as well as that of trouble arising from alleged breaches of
neutrality. A few months ago the clandestine passage through
London of a train of barges laden with high explosives was
reported, which might easily have resulted in a frightful
catastrophe.

The rights then of neutrals in reference to the preservation
of peace are not merely sentimental, but are based on the
fundamental principles of self-preservation, and of protection
of one's own material interests. These rights, however,
notwithstanding the fact that they have grown more and
more important from time immemorial, have only recently
been formulated by a few private individuals. However,
if a professor of International Law can contemplate the
possibility of European Government, it is clear that the old
notion of any war carried on by princes having no superior
being a jiistiim helium has been modified or exploded. For
the said European Government is clearly intended to be a
Society of legally equal States, not a Napoleonic Empire.

The idea of a United Europe is suggested by the Echo,
October 20, 1904 : —

" In this great new country, with its boundless
prosperity, where men of all races vie with each other
in enthusiasm for the land of their adoption, the visitors
from Europe have seen the contradiction of the current
sophistry of the Old World, which teaches that the
different nationalities have ideals and aims incapable
of development side by side ; and they have seen,
by this practical example, how the existence of a
future ' United States of Europe ' is not an impossible
dream."



44 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE.

Many legal rights have grown out of moral rights, and
I venture to suggest that such growth is now going on apace
in the rights of neutrals in reference to the preservation of
peace.*

That the " rights of neutrals arising out of war are only
vaguely established " is proved by the strong protests Great
Britain has had to make against Russian interference with
our merchant ships.

The vagueness of International Law with respect to the
duties of neutrals gives rise to many controversies which
threaten to extend the area of war. See Standard,
November 25, 1904 : —

" German liners have been openly sold to Russia
as transports and colliers, and at least one British-built
torpedo boat, as we know, has passed into the hands
of the naval authorities at Libau. International Law
is very vague on all these points. It may be hoped
that the whole matter will be put on a much more precise
and intelhgible footing when President Roosevelt's
Hague Conference has completed its deliberations, and
defined the rights and the obligations of neutral nations
in time of war."

It is by no means certain that a satisfactory amount of
agreement will be found possible on this difficult and
contentious subject. If earnest efforts to minimise the
dangers of the area of any war being extended by this vagueness

* Professor J. Westlake, Chapters on 1 iitcrnational Law,
Chap. III., p. 48, writes : — " Since that age — the age of Grotius —
great changes have taken place in the substance of International Law.
Neither the laws of war as between enemies, nor the laws of war as
affecting the duties and rights of neutrals, nor several parts of the law
for times of peace are the same now as then. The process of change
has been, and could only be, the conversion of moral claims into legal
rights, taking the distinction between these to be what we find it in
Grotius, namely, the distinction between claims which the general
conscience allows you to enforce and those which it allows you to urge
but not to enforce." In regard to Arbitration, this distinction can be
adopted if we understand " enforce " to mean " maintain before a
Court or Commission."



SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 45

result in failure, the disappointment will after all furnish
an additional reason for seeking peace and ensuing it as the
most vital interest of the civilised world.

Any ebullition of bias on the part of an arbitrator which
tends to lower the dignity or to diminish confidence in the
impartiahty of a permanent court of arbitration tends to
do injury and give offence to all the Powers which use that
court. One lamentable effect of the Russo-Japanese war
was witnessed on February 22, 1904, after the delivery of
the Venezuela award by the Hague Arbitration Tribunal,
when ]\I. jNIuravieff, Russian Minister of Justice, President
of the Court, in an address made unwarrantable allusion
in a patriotic strain to the Russo-Japanese war, thereby
rendering the war which prompted such an utterance
detrimental to the interests of neutral States.

It is gratifying to note that a distinguished French naval
officer supports the idea to which this chapter is devoted,
that war inflicts injury on neutral Powers. M. Raqueni in
L'Epoque, August 27, 1904, reports Rear-Admiral Reveillere
as saying — " A war between England and France would
be a great misfortune to the whole world, for humanity ;
it would be high treason against civilisation."



CHAPTER IV.



HORROR AND BURDENSOMENESS OF WAR.

The general idea that war now is more horrible than it
used to be has so far been accepted without comment, but
it does not seem sufficiently self-evident to advance as a
serious argument in favour of an International Peace Union
without some discussion. It must be remembered that war
used to be written up and a decent veil thrown over its hideous
features by romance writers and historians, while of late
years realistic writers, for instance, Emile Zola, Guy de
Maupassant, and Leo Tolstoi have been writing it down apace,
yet among the numbers of persons who read little or carelessly
it is still true that

" With all our boasted civilisation we do not yet
realise the senseless and barbaric nature of war. It is
accepted as something inevitable. But if the stay-at-
home public could only know one tithe of its real horrors
there would grow up a feeling of aversion that would
make more than anything else for international peace.
In the case of Japan and Russia, as indeed in all wars,
it is impossible for one nation to wipe out the other.
What happens is that so many thousands of men on



SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 47

either side — who have no quarrel whatever with each
other — are killed, and the slaughtering process goes on
until one of the Powers gives in, and " honour " is
satisfied. In the meretricious glamour and glory of
war there is no thought of the wounded, the widows
and orphans ; the dark side of the picture is carefully
ignored." — Notts. Express, September 28, 1904.

Yet it is to be hoped that the little leaven of the thoughtful
few will leaven the whole lump of society.

The horror of modern warfare in comparison with bygone
campaigns does not depend upon the numbers of killed and
wounded, or upon the percentage of the total number of
combatants placed hors dc combat, although the engagements
in Manchuria have been more sanguinary on the whole than
any fighting during or since the Crimean War. At the battle
of Salamis, after liberally discounting historians' estimates,
we may assert that 300 Eastern vessels were destroyed ;
reckoning the crews to number 200 on the average, the crew
of a Persian trireme being about 230, we find that 60,000
men of the fleet of Xerxes were slain or drowned. The
carnage of the battle of Plataea on the Asiatic side was
reported as more than 137,000 slain, the wounded being
doubtless killed and included in this total. At least half a
million Asiatics and Greek allies of Persia must have perished
in the whole war, and including non-combatants it is likely
that one million either died or became slaves to the victors.
The battle of Chalons, a.d. 451, between Attila and the
Romans and Visigoths may have been waged by 750,000
combatants, and the number of slain was computed at 106,000.
The claim urged on behalf of the battle of Mukden to be the
greatest and most sanguinary ever fought should, except
as to the extent of the battle field and the length of the
struggle, be modestly limited to the battles recorded in
modern history.

In some respects, indeed, modern i:)ractice has ameliorated
the conditions of war ; l^attles no longer finish off with a
massacre, and the wounded are no more left on the field to
die unattended, unless the severity of weather and the vastness



48 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE.

of the battlefield, as at the great battle of Mukden, overtax
the resources of the ambulance departments. It is not in
fact the sum total of the effects of the destructive agencies
in use that appals, but the unspeakable amount of annihilating
energy instantaneously displayed by single instruments of
destruction. In a moment a torpedo or a mine shatters a
battleship which Nelson's guns might have battered for a
week ineffectually. A fort hitherto impregnable is now
reduced to an untenable mortuary by a few monster shells
hurled from guns or mortars several miles distant, or is at
once laid open by the volcanic eruption of mines. Men are
either blown to atoms or instantaneously killed without a
mark of violence upon them. This kind of thing is not new,
but has never before been exhibited on such a colossal scale.
An action is now a series of catastrophes.

The battle of Mukden is a striking example of the
immensity and overwhelming impressiveness of scientific
warfare in its most recent phase. In several respects it is
the most appalling conflict on record, although in ancient
times its totals of combatants and victims may have been
exceeded. A leader in the Daily Mail described its main
characteristics : —

" More than half a million men have been locked in
combat along a front of seventy miles, striving to
annihilate each other with the deadliest engines devised
by modern science. The gigantic howitzers which
rained death and destruction upon Port Arthur were
only yesterday hurling their ponderous bolts
upon General Kuropatkin's infantry and artillery.
The machine guns which beat off so many a gallant
assault of General Nogi's veterans by mowing down
masses of men in swathes of death were equally busy
on the banks of the Hunho. Over the confused and