Part 17

When this document has been fully confirmed, a quarter of the inhabited world will be rendered inviolate, and 120 millions of men set free from the chronic frenzy of war.

If minor breaches of the peace possibly may not thereby be for ever prevented, yet certainly the irresponsible system of violence will become powerless against the force of civilization which is spreading over the whole Western hemisphere.

FOOTNOTES:

THE PROSPECTS.

The events which I have here described will perhaps one day be regarded as the transition into a new era. But specially here, in the Old World, with its many unsettled accounts, we cannot rely upon bright pictures of the future. We are convinced of nothing beyond the range of our own knowledge and experience.

I have thought so myself, and therefore I have endeavoured to keep to facts which no one can deny.

It is a fact that WARS CONTINUALLY DIMINISH in proportion as peoples are brought nearer to one another by trade and commerce. The old warlike condition has ceased. Formerly not a year passed without war in Europe--in the Middle Ages hardly a week. After 1815 an international peace reigned over most of the European States for forty years. In the Scandinavian peninsula that peace is continuing still. Before that time, at least until 1721, Sweden was almost continually involved in war. We reckon two hundred and sixty years of war to the Kalmar Union, and the proneness to invade and defend the countries on the other side the Baltic.

The old CAUSES OF WAR ARE BEING REMOVED. Certainly new ones arise as a result of selfish patriotism, breaking out in new acts of violence. But these outbreaks of barbarism become continually more rare. Unhappily, they are so much the more horrible when they do occur, but yet much More transitory. This is applicable to all the great wars in the last half of the present century. No thirty years' war is known now.

In consequence of the shorter flow of blood the wounds get time to heal, and the divided interests are allowed to grow together again. The levers of civilization are again in motion; commerce spreads over land and sea by steam, electricity, and other motive powers. The victories of Alexander and Napoleon are cast into the shade by the triumphal procession of the tiny postage stamp around the world. Trade and industry, art and science, efforts in the direction of universal morality and enlightenment, all branch out and weave around the nations a boundless web of common interests, which, though at certain intervals violently torn asunder by brute force, grows together again with increased strength and in broader compass; until one day, under the majesty of law, it will form an irresistible civilizing power.

This is what in REALITY IS TAKING PLACE. Men do not in general see it; and this, because they busy themselves so much with warlike notions, and trouble themselves so little about events of the character that I have dwelt upon in the foregoing pages.

* * * * *

The friends of peace ought to stimulate one another, especially when there is gloom over the great world, and no one knows whence the approaching calamity may spring. Once it was warded off from our land by a wise measure of one of our kings. I refer to Oscar I., when he saved us from being embroiled in the chances of war, by drawing up a DECLARATION OF NEUTRALITY in 1854, which was approved by the united powers, and earned for him the homage and gratitude of the Swedish Riksdag, in an address which lauded him as one of the wisest and noblest of kings.

But there is little security that the same expedient will always lead to a like successful result, if people wait till war is at the door before setting to work.

In time of peace, and during the specially good relations which obtain between the two English-speaking nations, as well as between France and America, our fellow-workers on both sides the Atlantic are making use of the favourable opportunity for trying to get this good relation established by law.

It may well be asked why we, who are friendly with the whole world, should not be able to do the same, not only with respect to Siam, but also first and foremost with our near neighbours.

It was this thought which led to the Arbitration resolution in 1890, in the Storting and in the Riksdag.

At the first meeting of the Left (Liberals) of the Storting, Feb. 4th, the subject was discussed and gained unanimous adhesion. Whereupon followed the resolution in the Storting on the 21st, which was adopted by a large majority, March 5th, after the Minister of State (Stang) had delivered a long speech against the resolution in vain.

After this successful result, a similar resolution for Sweden was brought into the First Chamber by F.T. Borg, and in the Second by J. Andersson. The reports of the committees upon it ran diversely. The committee of the First Chamber opposed, and that of the Second Chamber approved, the resolution. On May 12th the question was thrown out in both Chambers.

Mr. Borg spoke with dignity for his resolution in a long speech. This was answered by the chairman of the committee, with a reminder of the perverse condition of the world and of the human race. The resolution contained a "meaningless expression of opinion." It was a real danger for small nations to go to sleep, hoping and believing in a lasting peace. It was now just as in the olden times: those who loved peace and would preserve it "must prepare for war." The speaker had, as chairman of the committee, expressed sympathy with the resolution, but he added, "one does not get far with paper and words; and, according to my opinion, the honourable mover of the resolution will certainly show more love for peace if he, next year, on coming back with this peace business, will set about it with a proposition for some ironclads and artillery regiments or such like things, of more effectual service than the platonic love which he has expressed; and I venture to predict that both the committee and the Chamber will support him more powerfully than to-day."

After another distinguished genius had expressed himself in the same well-known fashion, wherein proofs were conspicuous by their absence, and the narrow circle of thought was filled with scorn and slighting talk about "pious notions," etc., the High Chamber threw out the bill by fifty-six votes against four.

In the Second Chamber the debate was opened by the Foreign Minister with a speech which clearly enough justifies the "MEMORIAL DIPLOMATIQUE" where it points to the necessity of the study of the arbitration-system having a high place amongst the requirements made of those who enter the path of diplomacy;--a thing that they have actually begun seriously to set before themselves in England.

In full accord with the evidence brought forward above, the judicial professor of the Chamber declared in short that the Chamber would disgrace itself by adopting the resolution before it.

After the mover of the resolution and some who shared his views had expressed their hope that the Chamber would not fall back from the position it took in 1874 upon this question, a speaker rose who requires to be met, Herr A. Hedin.

He began with the assertion that if a refusal of the report of the committee would show that the Chamber had now changed its opinion, they had before them sufficient reason for this. He wondered that a resolution of such a nature as this had been brought forward, so soon after the unpleasant experience which the country and people of Sweden lately had in a so-called decision by arbitration. "The Chamber will please to remember," continued the speaker, "that the king, with no authority from the Riksdag, agreed with Spain to appeal to arbitration upon the difficulties that had arisen on the right understanding of the prolonged commercial treaty with Spain. Also the Chamber will please to remember that this arbitration tribunal neither acted upon the plan settled in the agreement, nor did it act in harmony with the instructions of the treaty; and what was worse, the so-called, or supposed, sentence which this one-man arbitration tribunal passed did not concern the matter, which according to the agreement was to have been settled by arbitration, but quite another, which could not reasonably be subjected to arbitration--though the matter was, so far as we were legally concerned, made to appear as though Sweden had received an injustice in the principal matter which should have been tried by arbitration, but which was not--a circumstance which, with the Spanish authorities, has greatly weakened the position in law due to Swedish citizens, whose rights have been violated in so unprecedented a manner by the mode of procedure in consequence of which arbitration was appealed to."

All this had truth in it. But does that prove anything against the usefulness of arbitration clauses in treaties of commerce?

The agreement referred to between the united kingdoms and Spain, January 8th, 1887, establishes:--

"A question which affects customs or the carrying out of commercial treaties, or relates to results of some special violation of the same, shall, when all attempts to come to an amicable agreement and all friendly discussions have proved fruitless, be referred to an arbitration tribunal, whose decision shall be binding on both parties."

According to this it may be plainly seen, that the well-known Swedo-Spanish SPIRIT-DISPUTE, to which Mr. Hedin alluded, ought to have been solved in its entirety by arbitration. The Spanish Government, however, maintained that this affected Spanish internal concerns, since in fact the forced sale of Karlstamms-Volagets brandy stores in Spain took place as a result of a new spirit law, to which the arbitration clause in this case could not be applied.