Ad 4. La conférence exprime sa vive satisfaction au sujet du développement des idées pacifiques pendant l'année dernière, notamment de la conclusion de traités d'arbitrage entre la France et la Grande-Bretagne, la France et l'Italie, la France et l'Espagne, qui doivent être suivis de conventions d'arbitrage entre d'autres Etats; elle voit dans les accords récemment conclus entre la France et la Grande-Bretagne pour l'arrangement des questions coloniales qui étaient litigieuses depuis longtemps entre ces deux puissances, un événement heureux et important et invite les autres gouvernements à procéder de la même manière en supprimant, si faire se peut, d'un commun accord, des différends invétérés qui pourraient amener un jour de graves complications, s'ils n'étaient arrangés à temps par une entente mutuelle. Ad 5. Considérant que l'opinion publique éclairée et l'esprit de la civilisation moderne exigent que les différends entre nations soient réglés de la même manière que les contestations entre individus, c'est-à-dire par des cours de justice et conformément à des principes légaux reconnus, La conférence demande que les divers gouvernements du monde entier délèguent des représentants à une Conférence internationale qui devra se réunir à l'époque et au lieu désignés par eux pour délibérer sur les questions suivantes, savoir: (a) Les points ajournés par la conférence de La Haye, (b) La négociation de traités d'arbitrage entre les nations qui seront représentées à cette conférence, (c) L'opportunité de créer un congrès international qui se réunirait périodiquement pour discuter les questions internationales, Et décide de prier respectueusement et instamment le Président des Etats-Unis d'inviter toutes les nations à se faire représenter à cette conférence. Ad 6. Considérant que la navigation et le commerce des Etats neutres souffrent un dommage et des inconvénients sérieux résultant de l'usage des mines flottantes dans les récentes opérations militaires, la conférence exprime le désir que les conventions concernant les usages de la guerre soient revisées en vue d'éviter les dangers dont il s'agit. Ad 7. La conférence prie ses membres d'engager les parlements auxquels ils appartiennent à inviter les gouvernements à faire reconnaître par une conférence internationale le principe du droit des gens de l'inviolabilité de la propriété privée sur mer en temps de guerre. Ad 8. Dans le but de renforcer l'action de l'Union interparlementaire, il est désirable: (a) Que les groupes interparlementaires aient une forte organisation, qu'ils s'occupent spécialement des questions internationales et qu'ils concertent des actions préparatoires ou décisives dans leurs parlements; (b) Qu'il soit reconnu que les membres des groupes interparlementaires sont, en vue des actions concertées, solidaires, sans distinction des fractions politiques auxquelles ils peuvent appartenir; (c) Que les groupes interparlementaires répandent dans leurs parlements, traduites dans la langue du pays, toutes les communications qui leur seront faites par les organes de l'Union interparlementaire; (d) Que l'Union interparlementaire ait un organe de publicité; (e) Que le Bureau interparlementaire soit organisé de telle sorte qu'il puisse centraliser et coordonner tous les documents relatifs aux affaires diplomatiques et en communiquer des extraits utiles quand il le jugera nécessaire; (ƒ) Que le Bureau interparlementaire soit constitué en personne juridique. Le Conseil interparlementaire est invité à exécuter immédiatement la résolution 'f, et pour le surplus, en tant que besoin, à soumettre des propositions à la prochaine conférence. SÉANCE D'OUVERTURE DE LUNDI, 12 SEPTEMBRE 1904, FESTIVAL HALL M. GOBAT. Suivant l'article 7 des statuts, l'assemblée procède ellemême à la nomination de son président. Au nom du groupe américain et du Conseil interparlementaire, j'ai l'honneur de vous proposer M. Richard Bartholdt, membre de la Chambre des représentants du Congrès des Etats-Unis. M. Bartholdt est désigné par acclamation comme président de ia XII Conférence interparlementaire. Il prend place au fauteuil présidentiel. Mr. BARTHOLDT. Gentlemen, I greatly appreciate the honor you have bestowed on me by my selection as your presiding officer, and on behalf of the American group I thank you. In calling the Twelfth Interparliamentary Conference to order, I bid you a cordial welcome in the name of the Congress of the United States. I note the gratifying fact that 14 different countries of Europe are represented here, and, including the American Congress, 15 different parliaments of the world. Unlike other visitors, the 200 and more delegates, all of them actual members of national legislative bodies, have been attracted here neither by the wonders of the greatest of all expositions nor by mere curiosity to see the New World. They have traversed the thousands of miles now between them and their homes in the interest of an idea-on behalf of a great cause--the cause of humanity. We meet here to-day not as individuals riding a hobby to please our fancy, but as lawmakers clothed with authority by the votes of the people; and while we have not been expressly delegated by the people to serve the specific purpose which has brought us together, we feel that no grander service could be rendered any constituency anywhere under the sun than the service which would result in lessening the possibilities of war. We are pledged to render such service by creating a public sentiment, and by using whatever influence we may possess in the several legislative bodies to which we have been elected, in favor of law and justice in international relations as against brute force-in favor of right as against might. In other words, we ask-aye, we demand-that differences between nations shall be adjudicated in the same manner as differences between individuals are adjudicated--namely, by arbitration; by the arbitrament of courts in accordance with recognized principles of law rather than by war. Are we right? Surely! But war will continue, they say. True; we can not abolish it any more than we can abolish murder by enacting laws against it. But is this a good reason why we should not make laws against murder? Shall the fact that the sword is still being drawn deter us from entering agreements which, if faithfully carried out, will leave the sword firmly sheathed? Our skeptical friends know we are right; enlightened public opinion admits it; the cause of humanity is outraged by any other view. The goal of good government, after all, is the welfare and prosperity of the people, and it is because we know that peace surely promotes and war surely destroys that which statesmanship is supposed to strive for, that the friends of international arbitration urge the governments of the several nations to adopt this method of settling disputes, and thereby further the very objects of efficient statecraft. Great and wonderful strides have been made of late years in the direction of a mode of settlement of international differences more in harmony with the demands of modern civilization. The Hague conference and The Hague court, scoffed at at first by wiseacres and skeptics, are no longer the objects of sneers. Religious wars are, fortunately, horrors of the past; wars for mere conquest will no longer be waged, and calls to arms to defend what is termed national honor are being too carefully scrutinized by enlightened and politically ripe nations to be resorted to without good and substantial reason. Does it not occur to you and to all that the dogs of war are being gradually starved to death? We want the great powers to negotiate arbitration treaties among each other which will carry with them guaranties to the people of an era of peaceful progress and undisturbed development, and thus enable human instincts and faculties to exert their highest possibilities in the arena of art, science, and industry. We want to see The Hague court clothed with jurisdiction to arbitrate each difference between governments and nations, and we want an international legislature to consider and agree upon a universal code of law which is to govern the court's decisions and will tend to substitute for international anarchy a reign of law and order, an era of justice and peace. The government which will take the lead in this movement will reap the plaudits and blessings of mankind; the country refusing to join it will stand convicted by public sentiment. I rejoice in the presence here of the chosen delegates of so many nations. Your presence, I know, will be a new incentive to the American government to carry further the noble mission of this Republic, and thus rise to the full height of your expectations. I now have the distinguished honor to present to you the honorable Francis B. Loomis, the first assistant Secretary of State, who will address you in behalf of President Roosevelt and the Government of the United States. M. FRANCIS B. LOOMIS, SOUS-Secrétaire d'Etat. Your presence here this brilliant September morning is agreeable evidence of the fact that the great cause to which you are so unselfishly devoted is neither dead nor languishing. I am glad to welcome the delegates and members of the Interparliamentary Union to this city and to this country. The Government of the United States and its people are pleased to have you here. The President of the United States directs me to extend to you his kind and most cordial greetings. Valuing as he does the blessings of peace, earnestly desiring the diminution and lessening of the rigors and horrors of war, your coming is particularly grateful to him, for you are about to discuss phases of a problem of deeply human and worldwide interest the peaceful settlement of international disputes. You will find here, I think, a kindly and potent awakened public sentiment a sentiment .distinctly favorable to the widest practicable application of the principle of arbitration to the adjustment of international affairs where grave interests and issues are at stake, as well as to those of a less embarrassing nature which may be quite wholly composed through diplomatic agencies. You will find in this country, I am proud to say, a responsive and sympathetic environment. Your deliberations will be followed with warm and friendly interest by the American people, and every advance, every forward step you make toward a realization of those high ideals which inspire your councils and direct your labors, will receive the encouraging approbation and sincere plaudits of the American people, who cherish the hope that the world one day may enter upon the threshold at least of that blessed era, "the thousand years of peace." For more than a century there has existed in this country a virile and steadily increasing sentiment in favor of the adjustment of differences between nations by some method less brutal and less costly than a resort to arms. This sentiment has found expression from time to time in treaties and conventions negotiated by the Government and in the creation of commissions to whom questions of international importance have been referred for adjudication. The work of these various tribunals and commissions will doubtless be of far-reaching consequence, because from it may be evolved a unified system of general principles which should appeal by their sanity, lucidity, fairness, and scientific derivation to all of the governments of the earth. Within the last one hundred years there have been more than 200 cases in which international differences have been adjusted by the peaceful method of arbitration in one form or another, and the Government of the United States has been a party to about 70 of these arrangements. The most notable treaty in which this Government was concerned, and one which has had, perhaps, the most profound and beneficent results in that it has directed and powerfully influenced public opinion, was the treaty negotiated in Washington in 1871, which provided for four arbitrations. Of it Mr. John Morley says: The treaty of Washington and the Geneva arbitration stand out as the most notable victory in the nineteenth century of the noble art of preventive diplomacy and the most signal exhibition in their history of self-command in two of the three chief democratic powers of the Western World. The active good will of the American people and Government with respect to all practical efforts to give effect to the principle of arbitration was again splendidly and sufficiently demonstrated by the part which the American delegates took in the peace conference, and has been still further shown by the untiring efforts of this Government to contribute to the stability, permanence, and importance of The Hague tribunal. A former Secretary of State has well said: It is especially gratifying to us Americans to know that our Government was the first to show its faith in the efficacy and utility of The Hague court by resorting to it, with our neighboring republic of Mexico, for the settlement of a question of longstanding diplomatic controversy. The result of that trial has encouraged us to continue to resort to it, and it has had a salutary influence on other of the signatory powers. We were a second time gratified at that action of our Government when President Roosevelt was asked by the three powers-Germany, Great Britain, and Italy-to arbitrate their differences with Venezuela. In place of accepting the responsible trust so flattering to his impartiality, he courteously declined and referred them to the court at The Hague, which had by them and us been created for just such cases. It was a memorable event, which testifies to the progress of the world in the appreciation of reason as against force when those powerful nations stopped their coercive operations against a weak foe, recalled their navies, and agreed to submit their claims to arbitration commissions, and to refer to The Hague tribunal the essential questions involved in the conflict. And it is a matter of just pride to us *** that this result was brought about by the action of the President of the United States. Many private individuals have wrought well and valiantly in the field of international arbitration, and we do not forget that it was Andrew Carnegie, a generous American, who crowned a long line of noble, philanthropic work by giving to the world the Temple of Peace, a permanent and worthy abiding place for The Hague court. In this connection I desire to compliment the Interparliamentary Union upon the declaration which it made at its conference held in Holland in 1894 in favor of a permanent court of arbitration and the subsequent development of its plan for such a court, prepared by a commission of six members appointed for that purpose. The Interparliamentary Union deserves credit for practically forecasting five years in advance what proved to be the most salient work of the peace conference at The Hague. Several members of the Interparliamentary Union were delegates to that conference and exerted strong and important influence upon its action and decisions. I congratulate the members of the Union upon the substantial and gratifying progress which has been made, largely through their steadfast and intelligent efforts since the organization of this body some fifteen years ago. Great results have been achieved, and have been achieved quickly. You have aroused, directed, and educated public sentiment in favor of arbitration throughout the civilized world. Your work will still be in this direction. The Union should never cease its efforts to stimulate public interest in arbitration. It is this force which we call |