original animal instincts of the race, which had suddenly re-asserted themselves over all the moral gains of centuries. This original animalism does sometimes curiously come out unexpectedly in individuals, in families, even in social groups of considerable size. But it does not seize whole sections of civilized nations and throw them into one vast violent fit of brutalistic desire, when there is no sufficient motive for their action in the inciting circumstances.

When the civil war broke out in 1861, the instincts of the people were largely peaceful. The Mexican war fought beyond our borders had produced but little effect on the character of the nation, so largely was it condemned at the time and subsequently. The people born during the Revolutionary period and that of 1812 were largely gone and a new generation was living who knew next to nothing of actual war. When the civil war came on, the people of the nation, except that part of it which had been affected by slavery, went into hostilities with the greatest reluctance. The interests at stake were very great. The national unity was involved. Yet the people did not want war. They did not believe war possible in any serious way. There was no jingoism then, nothing which could properly have been called by this detestable name.

But from the firing on Fort Sumter thirty-seven years ago, for four years the entire people were filled with the excitement and frenzy of war. Sectional feeling was bitter and persistent. Hate and violence everywhere abounded. Peace principles were despised; peace men were declared to be traitors and cowards. Children drew in war at their mothers' breasts; boys and girls heard war at the family table; war flamed in the headlines of the papers; the pulpits of the nation preached war; the schools were full of war feeling. For more than a dozen years after the war closed, the passions and recriminations of the war continued, and had only in recent years begun to die away.

How could we expect the children of that time, who have now reached maturity and middle life, to fail to exhibit the fruits of that which was so deeply and thoroughly implanted in them? We are simply reaping to-day the harvest of the warlike instincts. which were then created or developed. This is the secret of our recent jingoism; it is the secret of the rapid degeneration of sentiment noticed above; it explains why the younger men in the nation are so

much more clamorous for war than the older men, especially the old soldiers, most of whom have had all they want of the bloody business, into which the nation entered so reluctantly in '61.

If we could have gotten through another decade or two without war, our jingoism would have died out. Perhaps we should have been able to keep our feet from the snare of European militarism, into which we have been in so much danger of falling. But a war now, if it lasts any length of time, is sure to re-create in the people warlike instincts the peril of which the nation will have to pass through a generation hence. At the close of it we shall not be ready to disarm as we were in 1865. All sorts of excuses will be found for keeping our navy large and our army larger than it has been. We shall find ourselves much farther along in the process of the militarization of the country, with less desire and less power to stop. Whatever justification people may make for a war against Spain in the name of humanity, the dangers here pointed out are of the most serious character, and we seem in danger of going headlong into them, with eyes deliberately closed.

Editorial Notes.

The annual business meeting of the American Peace Society will be held in Pilgrim Hall, Congregational House, 1 Beacon Street, Boston, on Monday, May 9th, at 2.30 P. M., to elect officers for the coming year, to receive the reports of the Board of Directors and of the Treasurer, and to transact such other business as may be brought before the meeting. A full report of the Annual Meeting will be given in the June number of THE ADVOlarge attendance of the members. The cause for which CATE OF PEACE. It is to be hoped that there will be a the Society has so long stood and labored demands unusual attention because of the peculiar crisis through which the nation is passing. The Society desires greatly to enlarge its work during the coming year, and hopes that every member, in whatever part of the nation he lives, may put forth special efforts at the present time to promote the principles of peace and goodwill in all the scope of their application. There are many persons in

all parts of the country who are in hearty sympathy with the purposes of the Society, and would be glad to become members if their attention were called to its work. Will not all those who are already members make it a special duty to try to induce others to become members? All who can do so are earnestly solicited to make contributions to the funds of the Society, to enable it to distribute a much larger number of its publications.

The International Peace Congress is to be held this year at Lisbon, Portugal. A large majority of the peace societies preferred Lisbon to Turin, Italy, the other city which asked for the privilege of entertaining the Congress. The date of the Congress has not yet been fixed, but it will probably be held at the last of September or the first of October, either before or after the meeting of the Interparliamentary Peace Conference which is also to hold its sessions at Lisbon this year. The Peace Bureau at Berne, which was charged with the duty of arranging for the Congress, has already prepared a provisional program which has been sent out to the peace societies for suggestions. The principal subjects to be treated at the Congress are likely to be international arbitration, international law, councils of conciliation, the peace exposition at Paris in 1900, methods of influencing public opinion, etc. The Geographical Society of Lisbon, which has organized a strong peace department, and which is this year to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of Vasco da Gama's discovery of the Cape of Good Hope route to India, will be glad to see a large delegation of the friends of peace from the United States, and will, we are assured, do everything in their power to make the Ninth Universal Peace Congress a success.

We have received the following letter from E. T. Moneta, President of the Lombard Peace Union, Italy, as well as one of similar import from the Secretary of the International Peace Bureau at Berne:

us,

"DEAR SIR AND BROTHER: The impending war between your Republic and Spain is a source of great sorrow to for the victims it will make, and because it takes from our propaganda one of its most conclusive arguments for combating war, viz., the great example which the United States has hitherto been giving to the world by living in complete liberty and prosperity through their love of peace.

"We do hope and to this end most earnestly exhort your Society and the other peace associations of America, not to cease making the most strenuous exertions in order to avert this war, or put an end thereto as speedily as possible.

"Meanwhile we beg you to tell us what resolutions were taken, under the difficult circumstances of the present moment, in view of the combative disposition of so great a portion of your fellow-citizens.

"With our warmest wishes for the earliest possible end of the present conflict, be pleased to accept the brotherly greetings of our whole Committee.

Yours, most affectionately,

E. T. MONETA."

We assure our friends in Europe that the peace societies in this country officially, and the individual members of them, have done everything in their power to prevent the present unfortunate situation. We appreciate fully their sorrow and sympathy, but their grief cannot equal ours that the peace propaganda is being robbed of "one of its most conclusive arguments" through the course

which our country is taking under the influence of the "combative portion" of our citizens. Nothing could give us greater pain and shame than that America, blinded and misled by an unrighteous zeal for righteousness, should fall from her unique position, lose the respect and confidence of the other nations, and forfeit her leadership of the world toward genuine international friendship and peace.

The following manifesto in regard to the present war was sent out a short time ago from Paris by the International Peace Association of Journalists:

"The Central Committee of the 'International Associa

tion of Journalists Friends of Peace' entreats all the journals of Spain and of the United States of America to address to their fellow citizens a pressing appeal in favor of the maintenance of peace. It invites the journalists of all countries to make earnest effort with their governments to the end that war may be avoided. If the press of the two worlds desires it, war, whose consequences may be frightful, will be impossible.

"Nobody doubts any longer that the arbitrament of the cannon is completely opposed to right. Therefore, a pacific solution of the Spanish-American conflict is required. That solution should be by way of arbitration; and there is no reason why this conflict may not be submitted to a tribunal composed of arbitrators named respectively by the interested parties. This solution will be singularly facilitated by the cessation of hostilities in Cuba.

"The acceptance of arbitration by Spain, far from being opposed to her dignity, will only exalt it the more. The acceptance of arbitration by the Republic of the United States will prove to universal public opinion not only its love of peace but also its good faith when it professes that its mission is one of justice and humanity.”

How noble this declaration of an association of newspaper men sounds by the side of the insane ravings of many sensational, would-be patriotic papers! And American papers at that! To think of the United States and its newspapers having to be invited by a company of European newspaper men to observe peace and to accept arbitration! No humiliation could be greater! It makes one feel that the whole order of nature is upside down! Perhaps war may have to be declared against these European journalists, in order to vindicate our "'honor!"

Augustine Jones of Providence, R. I., in a recent letter to the New York Tribune, quotes the following passage from Justice Story's "Commentaries on the Constitution," as full of suggestions at this critical juncture:

"The power of declaring war is not only the highest sovereign prerogative, but it is, in its own nature and effects, so critical and calamitous, that it requires the utmost deliberation and the successive review of all the councils of the nation. War, in its best estate, never fails to impose upon the people the most burdensome taxes and personal sufferings. It is always injurious

and sometimes subversive of the great commercial, manufacturing and agricultural interests. Nay, it always involves the prosperity, and not infrequently the existence, of a nation. It is sometimes fatal to public liberty itself, by introducing a spirit of military glory, which is ready to follow wherever a successful commander will lead ; and in a Republic, whose institutions are essentially founded on the basis of peace, there is infinite danger that war will find it both imbecile in defence and eager for contest. Indeed, the history of republics has but too fatally proved that they are too ambitious of military fame and conquest, and too easily devoted to the views of demagogues, who flatter their pride and betray their interests.'

Replying to a Belgian lady who recently sent him a book on peace, Tolstoï reasserts his belief that the only way by which peace can be effectually promoted is by entire abstinence from participating in war, or, as he puts it, the emancipation of man from military slavery. Here is what he wrote: "The best way to attain our object is to abstain from all participation-direct or indirect-in any action relating to war; for the surest method of perpetuating the present order of things is to compound with our conscience and to fancy that sermons and pamphlets can have any real effect, while our mode of life does not correspond with our professions. The emancipation of man from military slavery cannot come from crowned heads or from scientists, or men of letters, but from religious men, whose lives are in harmony with their consciences. This can only be attained when men realize the value of human dignity; in other words, when they accept a real and religious interpretation of life." The amount of "compounding with the conscience" on this subject is something appalling. There is no other matter about which, when a time of strain and test comes, the conscience so quickly and utterly goes down.

The New Order is the title of an eight-page paper, now in its fourth volume, published by the Brotherhood Publishing Co., at 26 Paternoster Square, London. It is edited by Vladimer Tchertkoff, one of the Russian Doukhobortsi now living in exile in England. The paper is published for the propagation of the view that war is. absolutely incompatible with Christianity, and that no Christian can ever do military service of any kind, not even in the militia training. This is the view held by the twenty thousand Doukhobortsi or Spirit-Wrestlers in Russia, of whose terrible persecutions by Russian officials an account was given not long ago in the ADVOCATE. This, as is well known, is the view taken by Count

Tolstoï, who has made several attempts to secure the discontinuance of the persecution of the Spirit-Wrestlers. Many of the Russian Stundists also cherish the same be

lief. There is also a sect found in numerous towns of Southern Hungary called the Nazarenes, num.bering more than thirty thousand, whose members refuse to do any military service, who have in consequence suffered great hardships. Some of the young men of the Nazarenes refusing to bear arms have been thrown into prison and some of them forced to serve in the hospitals for twelve years. Mr. Tchertkoff, in the number of The New Order for February, severely criticises those members of the peace societies of Europe who are willing to do military service. He thinks that this greatly neutralizes the power of the peace movement. He also condemns the position of those members of the peace societies who uphold the present armed state of Europe as the most effective way of preserving peace.

The annual report of the Liverpool Peace Society for 1897-98, made by its Executive Committee, speaks thus of the unfortunate way in which Great Britain has entered into the rivalry of armaments :

“Great Britain is no laggard in the evil rivalry which has been created. At the moment, it is the army which must needs be increased, and this is no doubt the natural consequence of the foreign policy of the present government. The constant expeditions in India and in Africa explain to a great extent why the army is now discovered to be too small. While the country allows itself to be blindly led into supporting the so-called 'forward policy,' the outcome of greed and rapacity, under the delusion that trade follows the flag, it will probably accept these continued increases in expenditure without complaint, but the Committee desires to emphasize the fact that by far the greatest part of our commerce is done with the very nations whose goodwill is usually the last consideration, and who are so constantly being irritated by our national greed and selfishness.

It is a lamentable fact that while the population of the British Isles has increased during the last fifty years by 42 per cent., the expenditure on armaments has increased 300 per cent., and this year the army estimates call for the largest number of men we have had in any year of this century, and the greatest increase ever proposed to the British army in time of peace."

The ambassadors of the six European powers, Germany, Austria, France, Great Britain, Italy and Russia, presented in person the following joint note to President McKinley on April 7th:

"The undersigned representatives of Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Great Britain, Italy and Russia, duly authorized in that behalf, address in the name of

That is true. But every poor tar of them would have instantly been blown into fragments, pounded into sausage, or sent to the bottom of the sea, if they had not forthwith surrendered. "Civilized warfare" does not allow, or makes a high profession of not allowing, armies on land to interfere with the private property or the persons of non-combatant citizens of the enemy's country. If our government acts consistently with its high professions of civilization and unselfishness it will at once order the navy to stop the miserable business of capturing the private property of non-combatant Spaniards on the sea, except when that property is "contraband of war." It has always been a disgrace to our government that it did not accept the declaration of the treaty of Paris in 1856 in regard to the abolition of privateering and the rights of neutrals at sea. The government has now given notice of its adherence to the Paris declaration. Why should it not go further and make war as "civilized" on the sea as it professes to have made it on the land? International law on this subject certainly deserves advancing another stage.

Since the above note was written, President McKinley, on the 26th of April, issued the following proclamation:

Whereas, by an act of Congress approved April 25, 1898, it is declared that war exists, and that war has existed since the 21st day of April, A.D., 1898, including said day, between the United States of America and the kingdom of Spain, and

Whereas, it being desirable that such war should be conducted upon principles in harmony with the present views of nations and sanctioned by recent practice, it has already been announced that the policy of this government will be not to resort to privateering, but to adhere to the rules of the declaration of Paris.

Now, therefore, I, William McKinley, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the power vested in me by the constitution and the laws, do hereby declare and proclaim:

First-The neutral flag covers enemy's goods with the exception of contraband of war.

Second-Neutral goods not contraband of war are not liable to confiscation under the enemy's flag.

Third Blockades in order to be binding must be effective.

Fourth-Spanish merchant vessels in any ports or places within the United States shall be allowed until May 21, 1898, inclusive, for loading their cargoes and departing from such ports or places; and such Spanish merchant vessels, if met at sea by any United States ship, shall be permitted to continue their voyage, if, on examination of their papers, it shall appear that their cargoes were taken on board before the expiration of the above term, provided that nothing herein contained shall apply to Spanish vessels having on board any officers in the military or naval service of the enemy, or any coal (except such as may be necessary for their voyage), or any other article prohibited or contraband of war, or any dispatch of or to the Spanish government.

Fifth-Any Spanish merchant vessel which prior to April 21, 1898, shall have sailed from any foreign port bound for any port or place in the United States, shall be permitted to enter such port or place, and to discharge her cargo and afterward forthwith to depart without molestation, and any such vessel if met at sea by any United States ship shall be permitted to continue her voyage to any port not blockaded.

Sixth The right of search is to be exercised with strict regard for the right of neutrals and the voyages of mail steamers are not to be interfered with except on the clearest ground of suspicion of a violation of law in respect of contraband or blockade.

Under this proclamation Spanish merchantmen will not be liable to seizure when carrying merchandise of citizens of neutral nations, nor Spanish merchandise when carried in neutral ships. But the government ought to have gone much farther and entirely prohibited the seizure of private property at sea. We see that there is a strong sentiment in Congress and in the Cabinet in favor of this, and it may yet be done.

Here is the order issued by General Blanco on April 11, for the suspension of hostilities in Cuba:

"His majesty's government, yielding to the reiterated wish expressed by His Holiness the Pope, has been pleased to decree a suspension of hostilities, with the object of preparing and facilitating the restoration of peace on this island, in virtue whereof I believe it convenient to order:

"From the day following the receipt in each locality of the present proclamation hostilities are ordered to be suspended in all the territory of the island of Cuba.

"The details for the execution of the above article will be the object of special instructions that will be communicated to the several commanders-in-chief of the army corps for the easy and prompt execution according to the situation and circumstances of the case.

The following is the wording of the ultimatum which was sent to Minister Woodford at Madrid on April 20th: You have been furnished with a joint resolution voted by the congress of the United States on the 19th inst.approved to-day-in relation to the pacification of the island of Cuba. In obedience to that act, the President directs you to immediately communicate to the government of Spain said resolution, with the formal demand of the government of the United States that the government of Spain at once relinquish its authority and government in the island of Cuba and withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters. In taking this step the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination when that is accomplished to leave the government and control of the island to its people under such free and independent government as they may establish. If by the hour of noon Saturday next, the 23d day of April, instant, there be not communicated to this government by that of Spain a full and satisfactory response to this demand and resolution whereby