attention to the suggestions submitted at that time by Philip Stanhope, embodied in these four rules that I am going to read to you.

The project submitted was not wild and freakish. It made moderate, conservative proposals, and all for the general good. It was suggested in the report that such a court should recognize the following principles:

1. National sovereignty to remain inalienable and inviolate.

2. The adhesion of every government to the court to be absolutely optional.

3. All adhering states to be on a footing of perfect equality with respect to the international court.

4. The judgment of the court must have the force of an executive

sentence.

It is worth while noting in this connection that not only does no government forfeit any of its sovereignty or dignity in such an agreement but, rather, makes it more secure.

The conference at Brussels a year later pushed the great work forward, and the proposals of the Union culminated in the establishment of the Court of The Hague, which Andrew D. White has said is of "vast importance."

The machinery for the rational settlement of international disputes being now provided, and mainly through the work and influence of the Interparliamentary Union, it only remains to educate the public so that the adhesion of all governments will be compelled. That is the work in which the Union is now engaged.

Cremer, the founder, believed that the First Hague Conference, called by the Czar Nicholas, was directly due to the influence that its work had on the mind of that ruler. The Czar had heard of the Union and asked his ministers for more information, at the same time expressing his sympathy and desire to coöperate. When reminded of the fact that it was an organization composed entirely of parliamentarians and that Russia had no representative legislative body, he was compelled to express his sympathy in another manner, and so came about the First Hague Conference.

The Union stands for something definite and practical. It hopes to translate into beneficent facts all the great and just principles of international law. It asks nothing freakish or unpatriotic of its members, who stand absolutely for the preservation of all national dignities, of territory and of sovereignty. It is opposed to war,

although it concedes that sometimes so drastic a remedy may be necessary. It stands for the civilizing influence of religion and the courts. It believes that wars are more hateful and hurtful than private quarrels. Private quarrels and their violent adjustment by the principals is not tolerated in civilized society, and public quarrels, which are a million times more destructive, ought not to be. That, in brief, is the creed of the Interparliamentary Union.

I heard this week that a certain eminent public man has said that he does not believe in the plan put forward by the Secretary of State for the arbitral settlement of international disputes because he regards war as a great civilizer. The Interparliamentary Union was created for the specific purpose of opposing just such civilizing influences as that gentleman stands for, and when light shall have penetrated all dark places, we will hope to have him as a recruit. But, for the time being, we set against his dictum the platform of a greater who said, "Peace on earth to men of good will."

The decrees of such a court will always be respected. It will not require the aid of a single constable, for the greatest of all Powers, universal public opinion, will sustain it.

The TOASTMASTER. Far be it from me to take part in this momentous controversy that has arisen over the merits of our Secretary, but I confess that my sympathies are not with the last speaker. I believe that if he has one quality that is transcendant, it is the selection of speakers at his banquets. Of course, I am unbiased; but I think the last speaker proved it. If we are sorry that the Secretary of State was not present, at least the presence of Mr. Slayden has reduced our regret to the irreducible minimum.

Now, gentlemen, lawyers, some lawyers, a few lawyers, rare lawyers, have occasion to look into history. I do not know why. Perhaps it is because sometimes they are interested in it, or that sometimes they may not have enough actual practice, or there may not be novels on hand; but when they do, they want history as accurately as it can be found, and history that will last as accurate for a long time-I mean for several months or several years, as such things go. Such men have recourse to the splendid works which are either written by Professor Hart, of Harvard University, or inspired under his wise and excellent guidance. Some of you may have been present yesterday when the arid legal discussion as to what mere language meant

was enlightened by his exposition of diplomatic history, and the idea, if I grasped his very comprehensive thought, was that when you are dealing with another fellow on a specific point, you want to know his past history and what he is doing elsewhere. I had that very experience once in an ordinary tort case. It did not seem to me to be a very good case, but I wanted the retainer, yet did not want to lose the case, and finally I said to the client, "You seem to have an exaggerated confidence in your case. What is it based on?" He said, "Well, you know, I think my chance is very good, because I know so much about the plaintiff's private life.”

So, I think, it will be very interesting to hear from our most illustrious professor of diplomatic history of that great university, Harvard, Professor Albert Bushnell Hart.

Mr. HART.

REMARKS OF MR. ALBERT BUSHNELL HART,
Professor in Harvard University.

Fellow members of this honorable Society: Your toastmaster has been good enough to allude to the great service which history renders to the legal profession, meaning, I suppose, that it enables lawyers to discover how many errors have been made by lawyers and by jurists in the past, so that they may repeat them for the benefit of their clients. History is, however, an essential part of all diplomatic proceedings, of all arbitrations, of presentation of cases, and I suppose that the historical mind may be as serviceable to the diplomat as to the ordinary man of affairs. Now, my own knowledge of international law, as a historian, I will confess is meager. As far as I can remember, in my academic career I heard three courses of lectures upon international law; the first from a very estimable man, who knew no international law; the second from a German professor who communicated no international law; and the third from a French professor who happened to be absent in the year that I was so happy as to attend the lectures. I will not, therefore, disturb myself by presenting any additional points of view upon the great questions which we have been deliberating, and which we have finally so completely and so admirably settled.

I should like, however, to say a few words about the absolute necessity of making further appeals within our own country, by bringing to the minds of more people in a stronger and more per

manent way, the fact that there is such a thing as international law and such a thing as international relations.

Now, of course, as a college professor, I share in and am interested in the efforts made, with a good deal of success, to teach those young men who are interested in it some of the types of international law. Although I have not taught international law, I see before me the faces of several persons who have sat in my classes, but whose later career apparently has not been seriously and unfavorably affected by that circumstance. I see before me a gentleman whose name has already been mentioned, and I have observed, gentlemen, that when the name of Mr. James Brown Scott proceeded from the mouths of the speakers here, that we all involuntarily cringed. Why? Because, as he is the editor of the great series of Classics of International Law, we all fear that he may leave our work out of that important series. But there was a time when I did not cringe, and when James Brown Scott did cringe, when I had it in my power to decide the grave question whether he should receive merely A or A plus upon his work..

I believe it is absolutely necessary that there should be an idea of international law more widely spread throughout the community, and there are several reasons for that; the first being that at present the whole trend of the political thought of this country is toward a fluidity of law, a movement for the initiative, for the referendum, and for constitutional amendments, upon a large scale, both of the National and of the State Constitutions. They all indicate a growing feeling that law is a temporary matter, that laws not only are not eternal, but that they are not very durable. There has been an enormous mass of legislation poured out by the State legislatures year by year, until now nobody believes that any law is very important. As a historian, I might call attention to a fact that international lawyers appear to deduce from the frequency of laws in the past. Their deduction seems to be a thing so perfected that when you find twentyfive successive statutes against the stealing of sheep it would indicate that sheep were not stolen; but the historian knows there will be about twenty-five laws defining the laws of stealing sheep. As a matter of fact, the fact that there is so much law makes no difference. A great conception of the juridical principles bearing between individuals and between nations, founded essentially in the nature of human government in the whole idea of the relation of groups of mankind, ideas which are not predicated on legislation, but on cen

turies of experience, ideas which must lie at the base of all constant enduring human relation, are ideals which are at the other pole from the fluidity of law of which I have spoken; and unless pains are taken in some way to bring home to the growing youth and middleaged people of the United States the idea that there is a system of law which is not subject to the initiative or referendum, unless we have a different conception, this country will be plunged into a series of interminable and unpardonable difficulties.

I observe a tendency to extend the principle of impressionism, the cubist method of stating things, to international law. It has been bad enough to see it applied to such great arts as painting and statuary and dancing and foot-ball, but I have seen stated in the public press and elsewhere evidence that the impressionistic tendency has reached the minds of international lawyers. I might instance the suggestion of a statesman that, if there is a treaty in existence that is unfortunate, the way to do is to have the Senate abrogate that treaty. That settles the whole thing. Then you have peace and concord among the nations. Or, if A makes a treaty with B, and A then, of his own volition, changes the circumstances under which that treaty applies, that that constitutes such a change of conditions that he is no longer bound by the treaty.

These aberrations do no harm, except that possibly some people might be influenced, as they are by going to a cubist exhibition, in supposing that those things are pictures.

I have turned over in my mind the hope that perhaps something may be done toward making the fundamental principles of international law better known in our country by systematic and serious study by our youths. I am convinced in my own mind that in our class work we should teach school children twelve or fifteen years of age the fundamental ideas of international relations. We are such a big country; we have so much of the international character in our relations between State and State. As you pass from this District through State after State to the Pacific Coast, you meet with different climates, historical environments, and sometimes very different sets of people, and you have in a sense an international situation within your own boundaries. Oftentimes the idea gets rooted into the child's mind that the United States begins in his ward and ends in the capitol at Washington, that the world begins in his ward and ends. at the same point, and that there is no world outside of the boun