and merchants, representing about eighty chambers of commerce of the United Kingdom, should have swept aside all political objections and have boldly trusted to the efficacy of friendly advances as between man and man, appealed to the French people. It seems to have been the first great popular effort ever made deliberately by a representative body of the middle class of a nation for the promotion of international friendship without the aid of diplomacy and without official assistance or even countenance of any kind.
Otherwise, private agencies of a standing character which contribute towards the promotion of peace may be divided into four classes, viz. (1) those which, without having peace for their direct object, promote friendship among men of different races and nationalities; (2) those which directly address themselves to the promoting of friendship and goodwill among peoples; (3) those which regarding peace as the immediate object of their efforts, endeavour to educate democracy in this sense; (4) those which endeavour to remove the causes of international friction by the codification of International law and the promotion of the international regulation of common interests. Lastly, there are two agencies which cannot be classed among the foregoing; one is the International Parliamentary Union and the other the Nobel Prize Committee.
1. Agencies which are indirectly making for peace are of many kinds. Science and medicine now bring men of all nations together in periodical congresses. Technology, electricity, mining, railways, navigation and many other subjects are now dealt with in international congresses. International exhibitions are always used as an occasion for holding many such meetings.
2. One of the most notable efforts directed to the deliberate cementing of friendship has been the interchange of official visits by municipal bodies. In the course of the Anglo-French agitation which culminated in March 1903 with the visit of King Edward to Paris, the French municipal councils passed many resolutions in favour of the entente. After the conclusion of the Anglo-French standing treaty of arbitration (Oct. 14, 1903) and the arrangements for the general settlement of outstanding difficulties with France (April 8, 1904), the municipal bodies in France were prepared to go a step farther, and in 1906 the Municipal Council of Paris was invited by the London County Council to pay an official visit to England. This visit was followed by a return visit to Paris and a similar exchange of visits between the London City Corporation and the Paris Municipal Council, exchange visits of the city corporations of Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh and Lyons, and a visit of the Manchester Corporation to Düsseldorf, Barmen and Cologne. A society, numbering many thousands of working men among its members, which has set itself the more special task of promoting the interchange of visits between working men of different nations, is called the “International Brotherhood Alliance,” or, after the initials of its motto, Fraternitas inter gentes, the F.I.G. Another agency, called the “American Association for International Conciliation,” seeks by the publication of essays on the different aspects of international friendship to promote the same cause.
3. The “peace societies,” which are scattered over the whole world, number several hundreds.[1] Their first International Congress was held in London at the suggestion of Joseph Sturge in 1843. In 1848 a second congress was held at Brussels. The third in 1849 took place in Paris, and was presided over by Victor Hugo. Other congresses were held at Frankfurt, again in London, and in 1853 at Manchester, where Richard Cobden and John Bright took part in the discussions. Then followed an interval of wars during which the Pacifists were unable to raise their voices. At length in 1878 a congress was held at the Paris International Exhibition of that year, but it was not till the next Paris International Exhibition of 1889 that these international peace congresses became periodical. Since then numerous congresses have been held, the seventeenth having sat in London in 1908, and the eighteenth at Stockholm in 1910. These congresses have been supplemented by national congresses in both Great Britain and France. Such congresses are doing admirable work in the popularizing of thought upon the numerous questions which are discussed at the meetings, such as compulsory arbitration, the restriction of armaments, private property at sea in time of war, the position of subject races, airships in war, &c.[2]
4. First among the bodies which try to remove the causes of international friction is the Institute of International Law. This is a body of international lawyers, consisting of sixty members and sixty associates recruited by election the members from those who “have rendered services to international law in the domain of theory or practice,” and associates from those “whose knowledge may be useful to the Institute.” It was formed in 1873, chiefly through the efforts of M. Rolin-Jaequemyns. The official language of the Institute is French, and its annual meetings are held wherever the members at the previous meeting decide to assemble. Its mode of operation is to work out the matters it deals with during the intervals between the sessions, in permanent commissions, among which the whole domain of international law is divided up. The commissions, under the direction of their rapporteurs or conveners, prepare reports and proposals, which are printed and distributed among the members some time before the plenary sittings at which they are to be discussed. If the members are not agreed, the subject is adjourned to another session, and still another, until they do agree. Thus the resolutions of the Institute have the authority attaching to a mature expression of the views of the leading international jurists of Europe. Another body having a more or less similar purpose is the International Law Association, which was founded in 1873 as the “Association for the Reform and Codification of the Law of Nations,” with practically the same objects as those which led to the constitution of the Institute of International Law. It also meets in different countries, but it differs from the Institute in the number of its members being unlimited and in all respectable persons being eligible for membership. A report is published after each meeting. There are now numerous volumes of such reports, many of them containing most valuable materials for international jurists. In 1895 the name was changed to International Law Association.
A new society was recently (1906) formed in America called the American Society of International Law, “to foster the study of international law and promote the establishment of international relations on the basis of law and justice.” “Membership in the society is not restricted to lawyers, and any man of good moral character interested in the objects of the society may be admitted to membership.” The publications of this society have already taken an important place among the literature of international law.
Still more recently yet another society came into being in Switzerland with objects which seem to be similar to those of the Institute of International Law.
The Inter-Parliamentary Union, which dates back to 1887, owes its origin to the initiative of the late Sir W. R. Cremer. It is composed of groups of the different parliaments of the world, who meet periodically to “bring about the acceptance in their respective countries, by votes in parliament and by means of arbitration treaties, of the principle that differences between nations should be submitted to arbitration and to consider other questions of international importance.”[3] The sixteenth conference was held at Brussels in August-September, 1910.
- ↑ See Annuaire du mouvement pacifiste pour l'année 1910, published by the Bureau International de la Paix, at Bern.
- ↑ At the third congress of the new series, held at Rome in 1891, was created the Bureau International de la Paix. This most useful institution, which has its office at Bern, serves as a means of bringing and keeping together all the known peace societies. Its Correspondance bimensuelle and Annuaire du mouvement pacifiste are well known, and its obliging hon. secretary, Dr A. Gobat, is always ready to supply information from the now considerable archives of the Bureau. In this connexion we may mention that the secretary of the London Peace Society, Dr Evans Darby, has edited an exhaustive collection of materials called International Tribunals. His statements every two years on the progress of arbitration at the International Law Association meetings also form an excellent source of materials for reference.
- ↑ Art. I of Statutes revised Sept. 1908.
