Part 2

Under the action of these forces we are learning more and more to endeavour to regard debated questions from the point of sight of our adversaries, to take account of their reasonable aspirations, to make allowance for their difficulties, even to consider how they can best render their appropriate service to the race, while we strive no less resolutely to keep or to secure the power of fulfilling our own. We could not regard our enemies as our grandfathers regarded theirs. Already the conviction begins to make itself felt that the loss of one people is the loss of all.

Meanwhile the growth of popular power and popular responsibility brings a wider and more collective judgment to bear upon national questions. The masses of peoples have more in common than their leaders, among whom individual character has fuller development. The average opinion of men, when the facts are set forth, responds to pleas of fellowship and righteousness, and tends to become dominant.

Such influences in favour of international Peace spring out of steady movements which, as they continue, will increase them. The past does not limit their power, but simply reveals the line of their action. Above all, they correspond with that view of our Christian faith which the Holy Spirit is disclosing to us by means of the trials of our age. Through many sorrows and many disappointments we are learning that the fact of the Incarnation assures to us the unity of men and classes and nations; and a wider study of history, which is now possible, shows that the course of events makes for the establishment of that unity for which we were created.

I cannot therefore but hope that the Essay of Mr. Arnoldson, which gives substantial evidence of the reality and growth of this movement towards Peace, will confirm in courageous and patient labour for an assured end all who join in the prayer that it may please God "to give to all nations unity, peace, and concord."

B.F. DUNELM.

AUCKLAND CASTLE, October 14th, 1891.

PAX MUNDI.

INTRODUCTION.

It was the small beginning of a great matter when, on December 22nd, 1620, a hundred Puritans landed from the ship Mayflower upon the rocky shore of the New World, having, during the voyage, signed a constitution to be observed by the colonists.

These pious pilgrims were guided by the conception of religious freedom which should construct for them there a new kingdom. They had, say the annalists of the colony, crossed the world's sea and had reached their goal; but no friend came forth to meet them; no house offered them shelter. And it was mid-winter. Those who know that distant clime, know how bitter are the winters and how dangerous the storms which at that season ravage the coast. It were bad enough in similar circumstances to travel in a well-known region; but how much worse when it is a question of seeking to settle on an entirely unknown shore.

They saw around them only a bare, cheerless country, filled with wild animals and inhabited by men of questionable disposition and in unknown numbers. The country was frozen and overgrown with woods and thickets. The whole aspect was wild; and behind them lay the measureless ocean, which severed them from the civilized world. Comfort and hope were to be found only in turning their gaze heavenward.

That they did conquer that ungrateful land and open the way for the boundless stream of immigration which for wellnigh three centuries has unceasingly poured in, must find its explanation in the faith that upheld their ways amid the dangers of the wilderness, amid the hunger, cold, and all manner of disheartening things, and gave them that power which removed mountains and made the desert bloom.

These Puritans, strong in faith, were the founders of the New World's greatness; and their spirit spoke out to the Old World in the greeting with which the President of the United States consecrated the first transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866:--

"Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill to men."

When this message came to us, the roar of cannon was but newly hushed, and the man of "blood and iron" had victoriously set his foot upon one of Europe's great powers; the same Austria which since then has, by the Triple Alliance, united its warlike strength with Germany.

But that message has not been an unheeded sound to all; especially to those whose warning voices the people never listen to before the misfortune falls, but who are always justified after it has struck. Yes! perchance in the near future it may again appeal to their reason, and find a hearing only when Europe has fallen into untold miseries after another war.

While menacing forebodings of this long expected war were spreading in the summer of 1887 through various parts of our continent, a little company of courageous men, strong in faith, like the pious pilgrims of the Mayflower, gathered together for the voyage across the sea to the New World, there to lay the foundation of a lasting work for peace.

Their first object was to present to the President of the United States and to Congress an address aiming at the establishment of a Court of Arbitration, qualified to deal with disputes which might arise between Great Britain and the United States of North America. In that address, signed by 270 Members of the British Parliament, allusion was made to the resolutions on peace which from time to time had been brought into Congress; and those who undersigned it declared themselves ready to bring all their influence to bear in inducing the Government of Great Britain to accept the proposition which should come from the Congress. Amongst those who signed it were, besides many distinguished Members of the House of Commons, several peers, including some of the bishops.

The address was presented to President Cleveland on October 31st, by a deputation of twelve Members of Parliament, whose spokesman, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, in his introductory speech, said: "Few events in the world's history would rank with the making of such a treaty. Perhaps only two in our own country's history could fitly be compared with it. Washington's administration established the republic; Lincoln's administration abolished human slavery. We fondly hope, sir, that it may be reserved for yours to conclude a treaty not only with the government of the other great English-speaking nation, but with other lands as well, which shall henceforth and for ever secure to those nations the blessings of mutual peace and goodwill. The conclusion of such a treaty will have done much to remove from humanity its greatest stain--the killing of man by man. And we venture to hope, that if the two great nations here represented set such an example, other nations may be induced to follow it, and war be thus ultimately banished from the face of the earth."

In the President's favourable answer he mentioned that no nation in its moral and material development could show more victories in the domain of peace than the American; and it appeared to him that the land which had produced such proofs of the blessings of peace, and therefore need not fear being accused of weakness, must be in a specially favourable position to listen to a proposal like the present; wherefore he received it with pleasure and satisfaction.

A week later, Nov. 8th, the son-in-law of Queen Victoria, the Marquis of Lorne, presided over a great meeting in London, at which many eminent men were present. The chairman emphatically remarked in his speech, that the settlement of international disputes by a Court of Arbitration has the advantage that, through the delay which is necessary, the first excitement has time to cool. The meeting declared itself unanimously in favour of the proposed memorial. Thereupon followed many similar expressions of opinion in England, whilst simultaneously in twenty of the largest cities of North America mass meetings were held, which with unanimous enthusiasm gave adhesion to the cause, and petitions of the same character flowed in to the President and Congress from the various parts of the great republic.

Encouraged by these preparatory movements amongst the two great English-speaking peoples, M. Frédéric Passy, with other Members of the Legislative Assembly of France, placed himself at the head of a movement to petition the French Government, requesting that it should conclude an Arbitration Treaty with the United States.

Such a memorial, bearing the signatures of 112 deputies and 16 senators, was received with much interest by the President.

On April 21st, 1888, Passy and forty-four other deputies moved a resolution in the Chamber to the same effect; and the idea has been carried forward in many ways since then, especially by a petition to the President of the United States from three International Congresses held in Paris, June 23rd-30th, 1889.

ARBITRATION.

Should these efforts lead in the near future to the intended result, International Law would thereby have made an important progress.

It can no longer be denied that International Law does actually exist; but we undervalue its significance because we are impatient. We do not notice the advances it has made because they have been small; but they have been numerous; and slowly, step by step, international jurisprudence has progressed. This affects not only the awakening sense of justice and acknowledged principles, but also their application, which from the days of Hugo Grotius, 250 years ago, down to Martens, Bluntschli, Calvo, and other most distinguished jurists of our day, has been the subject of great scholarly activity, by means of which the various regulations of jurisprudence have little by little been pieced together into a foundation and substance of universally accepted law.

What has been most generally done to gain the object in view has been the INSERTION OF ARBITRAL CLAUSES in treaties which were being concluded or had already been concluded in reference to other questions. In this direction SIGNOR MANCINI of Italy has been especially active. As during the time he was Minister of Foreign Affairs he had the concluding of a great number of treaties between Italy and other countries, he made use of the opportunity to insert into almost all--in nineteen instances--an arbitral clause.