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ments in the proposed Academy of International Law at The Hague, and we may anticipate the cordial acceptance by each of the formal invitation to this end. His suggestion that the Latin American states appoint committees for the consideration of contributions to the program of the Third Hague Conference and the intercommunication of such committees among all the American countries, excited unusual interest, especially in Brazil, where it is expected that steps to this end will be taken at once. He was also most fortunate in his appeal for the organization of national branches of the Society for International Conciliation, to be affiliated with those in Paris and New York. In four of the countries visited competent and energetic organizing secretaries have already been appointed and are at work. While the South Americans have not taken kindly to peace societies, of the ordinary pacifist kind, they quickly respond to the principle upon which the Conciliation was founded, which looks to the friendly adjustment of international quarrels through arbitration and other similar methods.

Mr. Bacon discussed fully the plans of the Endowment for the exchange of visits of representative men between the two continents, and also the proposed exchange of professors and students. Each of these projects met with sympathetic response, and Mr. Bacon reports that the time is already ripe for the inauguration of the exchange of professors. One difficulty presents itself in the limited number of Latin Americans who have a speaking knowledge of English, and on the other hand the equally limited number of North Americans who are familiar with Spanish. This difficulty in the way of closer intercourse between the two continents we are at length beginning to realize; it is a great mission of our higher educational institutions to gradually overcome it.

It thus appears that Mr. Bacon's mission to South America was most successful, in the sense that it is to bear immediate fruit. It was apparent to his hosts that he came with no selfish purposes,-not to seek concessions, not to solicit business advantages, but upon an errand purely altruistic in the highest significance of the word. He carried a message of friendship and coöperation in a work which is not for the benefit of one country, but of all the Americas and all the world. He sowed the seeds of a new and finer international relationship, and the results of his trip can hardly fail to be the establishment of intellectual currents of sympathy, leading to a higher and nobler civilization.

PEACE THROUGH THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

In opening the Twentieth World Peace Conference at The Hague on August 20, 1913, the eminent Dutch professor and publicist, Dr. de Louter, delivered a remarkable address, in which he criticized the attempt of many peace-loving people to bring about peace by revolution instead of by the slow, inconspicuous, but sure method of the evolution of law.

"Neither the abrogation of war," he said, "by official decree, nor the establishment of a supranational state, nor a change in government or in any social organization, can smooth the path to peace and put an end to the fighting instinct. There is but one way to accomplish this; it may be troublous, but it is sure; it is the way of right; not of a theoretical and imaginary right, but positive and real. A peace which does not spring from that which is right, which does not have right as its basis and guarantee, is worthless; it is worthy neither of your sympathies nor your efforts. It rests on a fragile and unstable basis; it depends on precarious eventualities, and is threatened with destruction at any moment. It sacrifices matters of primary importance to conditions of only secondary importance, whose moral value is of no account except as it is the fruition of the reign of right.

"There are those, however, who will ask what is that right whose praises you sing,' and declare that 'those who favor a World State are aiming at that very result.' In my opinion, ladies and gentlemen, right is first of all identical with the respect due to the existence of the present nations, with the conviction that they are living organisms, the fruits of nature and history; and in the second place, right means the unreserved recognition of the international bonds into which these nations. enter in full liberty. Scarcely felt in the beginning, these relations increase constantly and assume different aspects. Just now they have reached a range and importance that are really wonderful. The future is full of promise. But, and this is their important feature,—all these relations have their origin in the free action of independent states. The scrupulous respect for the juridical equality of the states is the starting point of any structure aiming at right between the nations. No departure from this principle can be admitted; neither the hegemony of one or of several states, nor the absolute submission to any authority whatWhen we do away with the equality or the sovereignty of the states, we strike at the very vitals of international law. Right is but a

ever.

phrase, and peace a chimera, if these fundamental rights are not considered inviolable.

"In consequence, international law can only be developed through the rational and voluntary action of independent states. These states alone establish right by means of collective conventions, which enforce this right through common agencies and protect it by means of arbitral and judicial institutions of an international character. International coöperation has established admirable institutions, such as treaties, which, by their tenor and importance, have suggested the idea of laws, and have been called treaties that engender international law, and sometimes are referred to by the misnomer treaty laws; international bureaus, dealing with administrative duties reaching beyond the national frontiers and spreading the benefits of civilization over areas including several states; arbitration and judicial courts that have already unraveled many complications and settled many dangerous disputes.

"This structure, which rests on deep-laid foundations and is being added to constantly, has made enormous progress. Yet it is purely voluntary and will not brook constraint. Being of an ethical origin it proceeds step by step, and continuing its salutary course, it will of necessity instill principles of morality and justice into the minds and into the hearts of the peoples and their leaders. Ladies and gentlemen, it is for you and our congresses, representing the cause of pacifism, to accelerate this process of infiltration into public opinion. It will be the office of the states themselves to glean the fruits of your efforts and to convert them into juridical relations and institutions.

"This marvelous evolution is taking place under our very eyes; it outlives temporary disappointments and controls troublesome incidents; it invades more and more the delicate domain of politics; it represents the sympathies of the peoples and the requirements of real life. Such is the true and salutary internationalism, the result of recent progress, the hope of the future and the precursor of the fraternity of nations. Satisfied to be the modest collaborators in this mission of organic process, let us move onward and never retrace a single step; but let us also be patient and avoid precipitate action which builds castles in the air!"

In the course of his address he adverted to three movements full of hope and promise, and it is pleasing to the American reader to note that the three are of American origin and that the distinguished European publicist looks to the western world for leadership in the cause of international peace.

"Let us look westward," he says, "to the hemisphere which, in the eyes of old Europe, seems the appointed heir to all the blessings of the promised land of ages ago. There, international wars have about disappeared; the antagonism of nationalities which, for a long time, separated Central and South America from the great Anglo-Saxon Republic in the north, is gradually dying out because of the birth of an everincreasing sentiment of a continental unity of interests which makes closer union possible and creates superb institutions. Allow me to cite three great examples of this movement.

"In the first place, young America has shouldered the stupendous task of codifying international law. Whilst, for more than a century, both in Europe and elsewhere, this codification fired the ambition of a handful of scholars not afraid to compile codes of customary laws, whose gaps they bridged with their individual notions of a theoretical law, Americans have realized that such a method can only beget doubtful results, and reached the conclusion that the only way in which to codify sets of laws is to seek the coöperation of the real legislators, that is, the states represented by their delegates. At the Second Pan American Conference, which met at Mexico City in 1901, Brazilian initiative led to a resolution which became the basis of a definitive treaty, by which the Secretary of State of the United States and the Ministers of the American Republics accredited to Washington were requested to appoint a committee of from five to seven jurisconsults for the elaboration of two codes of international law, one of private law, the other of public law, which were thenceforth to govern the relations between the American nations.

"The Third Pan American Conference, held at Rio de Janeiro in 1906, modified this project by substituting, in the place of the committee formed of a few jurisconsults accredited to Washington, an assembly of jurisconsults, delegated one each by all the American countries. It is this slightly enlarged assembly, representing, with but few exceptions, all the American countries, which met at Rio de Janeiro, June 26, 1912, and after continuous labors extending over nearly three weeks, succeeded in determining the bases for a veritable codification which is to present in the form of independent conventions, interconnected with some unity, not the more or less ingenious philosophic or moral notions of irresponsible publicists, but the rules of conduct corresponding to reality—that is, to the international life of the American nations. To accomplish this task, a careful study of the needs and real aspirations

of these nations will precede the actual undertaking of the great work.

"It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of such an enterprise. We cannot fail to realize the difference between individual and arbitrary efforts at codification and the admirable accord existing between representative men of an entire continent, coöperating with one another for the realization of a glorious and truly constructive work. The preparations that have been made for this work, the discussions that have taken place and the resolutions that have been adopted, in short, the entire process strictly carried out, are the irrefragable proof of a determined. resolution and of high and boundless aspirations. Latin America which, through the talent and eloquence of its delegates, somewhat surprised European diplomacy at the time of the Second Peace Conference, has displayed since then an activity and fecundity both humiliating and encouraging to their predecessors. Those whose efforts are devoted to the establishment of an era of peace founded upon right cannot but express their hearty approval of the vigorous workmen beyond the sea, busy in laying the solid foundations for an edifice of law, instead of indulging in the ephemeral fantasy of well meant and unproductive intentions.

"The second illustration is furnished by an essentially scientific Institute, whose moral influence and effect are not less important. The gradual coming together of North and South America has called into existence a new agency of progress. The projects for a Pan American Union which have been discussed for a long time, but never practically realized, have at last led to a definite result within the peaceful field of scholarly pursuits, thanks to the talent and perseverance of two illustrious men from the two halves of the hemisphere. In the course of the past year Dr. James Brown Scott, the distinguished jurisconsult of the United States, and Mr. Alejandro Alvarez, formerly a professor and at present counselor to the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who, in June, 1912, had brought to bear a salutary influence at Rio upon the plan of codification, have, after a personal meeting at Washington, founded in the latter place in October, 1912, 'The American Institute of International Law.' This Institute has for its object: first, to contribute to the development of international law; second, to crystallize the common sentiment for international justice; third, to promote pacific settlement of all international disputes arising between the American countries. This luminous plan was born of the conviction that it is better

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