first subject: on the non-augmentation during a certain time of the total number of troops existing to-day.

And even in this case, the discussion of the second subject in this Conference would only be academical: "preliminary examination," as the circular says, "of the means by which a reduction might be effected in future." It would, then, only be an exchange of ideas which would serve as bases for the Government in studying these questions destined for discussion, perhaps, in a later Conference.

For the present Conference, gentlemen, we find ourselves confronted with [25] questions and proposals that are entirely realizable and with a decision that is becoming more and more urgent.

The idea of the Emperor of Russia is grand and generous. Misunderstood at first, it now commands the approval of all peoples; for the people have at last understood that this idea has in view nothing but peace and prosperity for all. The seed has fallen into fruitful soil: the human mind is aroused; it is working to make the seed germinate, and I am sure that it will soon bear beautiful fruit. If not this first Conference, then a later Conference will accept the idea, for it responds to a necessity, to the want of nations. We are the first, gentlemen, called to cultivate this idea, to solve the problem; let us not yield this honor to others, let us make a supreme effort; in devoting good-will and confidence to it, we shall, I hope, arrive at an understanding that is so ardently desired by all the nations.

The Commission decided that these four speeches should be printed in the summary proceedings.

The propositions offered by Colonel Gilinsky, delegate of Russia, respecting the means of putting a limit to the development of future armaments, are expressed as follows:

1. An international agreement for a term of five years, stipulating the nonincrease of the present number of troops maintained in time of peace in each mother country.

2. The determination, in case of this agreement, if it is possible, of the number of troops to be maintained in time of peace by all the Powers, not including colonial troops.

3. The maintenance, for the same term of five years, of the size of the military budgets in force at the present time.

Colonel Künzli asks the assembly to refer to a future meeting the examination of the important propositions that Colonel Gilinsky has just formulated in the name of the Russian Government.

The first delegate of Persia, General Mirza Riza Khan, ARFA-UD-DOVLEH, pronounces the following discourse:

During the Conference so many and such eloquent addresses have been delivered that it would seem venturesome on my part to take the floor in a language that is not my own.

The Russian Government having done Persia the honor of inviting it to take part in the Peace Conference and to send a representative thereto, and His Imperial Majesty the Shah, my august sovereign, having deigned to choose me to undertake this honorable mission, the newspapers in Russia and in Sweden, especially those of St. Petersburg and Stockholm (to both of which countries I am accredited), have greeted my appointment with sympathetic articles and the more so because I belong so little to the world of letters. As to the journals of my own country they have expressed the warmest sentiments.

All these marks of interest impose upon me the duty of adding also on my side. some words to the support of the great cause which is that of all humanity and with which we have here to deal. To all the praises of which the humanitarian aim of the circular of Count MOURAVIEFF has been the object, I can add nothing. But, on the other hand, critics have arisen; they have gone to the length of attributing motives of selfishness to the generous initiative of which the circular is the result.

Having the honor of personally knowing His Majesty Emperor NICHOLAS II, whose noble and kind sentiments I have been able to appreciate, I am happy to firmly declare here that all the proposals of the Russian Government emanate from the magnanimous heart of its sovereign. It is without flattery or reservation that I make this declaration. Permit me, gentlemen, to cite to you a proof of his noble and elevated sentiments.

In the first year after my appointment to the post of representative of Persia at the Russian Court, I was accompanying on my horse the Emperor who was going from the Winter Palace to the Field of Mars to be present at the review which took place on the eve of the departure of the Emperor for Moscow, where he was going to be crowned. As I was somewhat ill that day, I fainted and slipped from my horse.

The Emperor, seeing this, stopped his brilliant cortege and did not continue on his way until I had been put in a carriage. During the review he several times sent his aides-de-camp to learn of my condition.

Our celebrated poet Saadi has thus expressed himself in describing pride: "Its glance is like that of a king who causes his army to pass before him."

The young Emperor, an autocrat of 26 years of age, who, for the first time, after his accession to the throne, was passing in review a brilliant army of 30,000 men, did not, in that moment of legitimate pride, forget an accident [26] that had just happened to a stranger. Indeed, he who acts thus can not be selfish, and his acts, the initiative that he has taken for this Conference. can only proceed from a good and noble heart.

On the reception of the delegates of the Conference at the Hague Palace, you were able to see how much Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands was interested in our work and in the result that might be hoped from it.

Gentlemen, let us fulfil our duty before the civilized world, and not discourage Their Majesties the young Queen WILHELMINA and the young Emperor NICHOLAS II. With all my heart I wish that the high initiative of the Emperor and the good wishes of the Queen may be crowned with success for the welfare of our prosperity.

At the request of the president, the technical delegate of the Imperial Russian Navy, Captain Scheine, files with the office the text of his propositions relative to naval armaments. They are couched in these terms:

To accept the principle of determining, for a period of three years, the size of the naval budget with an agreement not to increase the total sum during this triennial period, and the obligation to publish in advance during the same period

1. The total tonnage of war-ships, which it is proposed to construct, without defining the types of the ships themselves;

2. The number of officers and men in the navy;

3. The expenses of coast fortifications, including forts, docks, arsenals, etc. The meeting adjourns.

FIFTH MEETING

JUNE 25, 1899

His Excellency Mr. Beernaert presiding.

The minutes of the meeting of June 23 are read and approved.

The President asks Messrs. GILINSKY and SCHEINE whether they desire to develop further the proposals they formulated at the last meeting and of which the text has been printed and distributed among the members of the Commission. Colonel Gilinsky takes the floor and says:

After the meeting of Friday, June 23, several questions have been addressed to me concerning the Russian proposals that I had the honor to submit for discussion by the First Commission, and I now ask permission to make some explanations.

It has been observed to me that the two first proposals speak of the same question: why, then, divide it into two parts? There is however a difference between these two proposals; that is to say, the second is a consequence of the first. The first deals with the question as a whole: the question of principle. Russia proposes to you to make an agreement stipulating for the non-increase of the present number of troops maintained in time of peace in each mother country. If we reach such an agreement, it is then that the second proposal comes up, the question of the number. If necessary each country will have to declare, in round or exact figures-still according to our decision, the total number of its troops maintained in time of peace. It is to be defined whether the question means the number of soldiers only, without counting officers. Our proposal looks only to the total number of soldiers.

It will be necessary next to state the total number of recruits for each year which cannot be exceeded during the period of the understanding. Finally, it will be necessary to determine the number of years that the soldier is to remain under the flag, for you know well, gentlemen, that a change in this term has its influence upon the total of the territorial army.

That is what is dealt with in the second paragraph of the Russian proposal. In the two proposals we deal with troops maintained in the mother countries; colonial troops are excluded: for since colonies often find themselves in danger or even in a state of war, it does not appear possible to prohibit the increase of colonial troops. Russia has no colonies properly so-called, that is, possessions absolutely separated by the sea. But we have territories, which, from the point

of view of their defense, are in the same circumstances as colonies; for [27] they are separated from the mother country, if not by the sea, at least by enormous distances, and by the difficulty of communications; that is, Asia and the military district of the Amur. The two are extremely distant from

the center of the Empire; in the two the troops are not numerous and they find themselves opposed by very considerable armies which are nearer our troops than the reinforcements that we can send from Russia. There is, therefore, no means of placing these distant territories in the same conditions as the center of the country and of forbidding the possibility of increasing these troops in case of necessity; consequently, these territories must be considered as colonies.

The third point has regard to the ordinary budget, that is to say, the necessary budget for the maintenance of the existing troops; the manufacture of arms and constructions that do not go beyond what is ordinary. But when there is a complete change of cannons or of guns as well as the reconstruction of strongholds required by the effect of the new siege cannon, the manufacture of the new weapon requires enormous sums which cannot be found within the limits of the ordinary budget. These sums are asked by the Governments of all countries in addition to the ordinary budget; this is the extraordinary budget that can neither be provided for nor fixed. The high assembly having sanctioned the changing of armaments, has sanctioned in advance also the extraordinary budget.

The President asks whether other members have any proposition to develop respecting the first subject of Count MOURAVIEFF'S circular.

No one asking the floor, he opens the discussion on the Russian proposals and asks whether all the delegates have received from their respective Governments instructions permitting them to declare themselves.

The Delegates of Siam, of Denmark and of Serbia say that the instructions that they have requested have not yet arrived.

Colonel Uehara, delegate from Japan, says that he has not yet addressed

to his Government a request to receive instructions.

The President consults the Commission on the question whether it is best to enter upon a thorough discussion immediately, or to charge the two technical subcommissions or other delegates to make a preliminary examination.

Colonel Gross von Schwarzhoff thinks it preferable to take up the general discussion immediately, subject to deciding afterwards, if necessary, whether they should refer the examination to the two subcommissions.

This procedure is adopted.

The general discussion is opened.

Colonel Gross von Schwarzhoff speaks as follows:

GENTLEMEN: Our honored colleague, Colonel GILINSKY, has requested us not to vote, but to discuss the propositions which have been formulated in his report on the first point of Count MOURAVIEFF's circular.

I feel constrained to comply with this request and to express my opinion. I shall do so with perfect frankness and without any reservation. First, however, I wish to say a few words in reply to General DEN BEER POORTUGAEL, who made himself the warm defender of the prospositions even before they had been submitted to us. He did so in elevated and picturesque language, for which I envy him, and of which we all recognize the high eloquence. But I am unable to agree with all the ideas he has expressed. Quis tacet consentire videatur, says a Latin proverb and I would not like my silence to be taken for

assent.

I do not believe that among my honored colleagues there is a single one ready to admit that his sovereign, his Government, is engaged in working for the inevitable ruin, the slow but sure annihilation of his country.

mandate to speak for my honored colleagues, but as far as Germany is concerned, I can reassure her friends completely and dissipate all benevolent anxiety regarding her. The German people are not crushed beneath the weight of expenditures, and taxes; they are not hanging on the edge of the precipice, they are not hastening towards exhaustion and ruin. Quite the contrary; public and private wealth is increasing, the general welfare, and standard of life, are rising from year to year.

As for compulsory military service, which is intimately associated with these questions, the German does not regard it as a heavy burden, but as a sacred and patriotic duty, to the performance of which he owes his existence, his prosperity, his future.

I return to the propositions of Colonel GILINSKY and to the arguments which have been advanced, and which to my mind are not consistent with one another.

On the one hand, it is feared that excessive armament may lead to war; on the other, that the exhaustion of economic forces will make war impossible. [28] As for me I have too much confidence in the wisdom of sovereigns and nations to share such fears.

On the one hand, it is pretended that only those measures are necessary which have long been practiced in some countries and which therefore present no technical difficulties. On the other hand, it is said that this is precisely the most difficult problem to solve and that for it a supreme effort is necessary.

I am entirely of the latter opinion. We shall encounter in fact insurmountable obstacles, difficulties that may be called technical in a little larger use of the

term.

I think that the question of troops cannot be considered entirely alone, separated from a crowd of other questions to which it is almost subordinate.

Such are, for example, the extent of public instruction, the length of active service, the number of established regiments, the troops in the army units, the number and duration of enrolments under the flag, that is to say, the military obligations of retired soldiers, the location of the army corps, the railway system, the number and situation of fortified places.

In a modern army all such things are connected with each other and form, together, the national defense which each people has organized according to its character, its history, and its traditions, taking into account its economic resources, its geographical situation, and the duties which devolve upon it.

I believe that it would be very difficult to replace this eminently national i' task by an international agreement. It would be impossible to determine the accrement extent and the force of a single part of this complicated machinery.

It is impossible to speak of effectives without taking into account the other

elements which I have enumerated in a very incomplete manner.

Again, mention has been made only of troops maintained in mother countries, and Colonel GILINSKY has given us the reason for this, but there are territories which are not part of the mother country, but are so close to it that troops stationed in them will certainly participate in a continental war, and the countries beyond the seas. How could they permit a limitation of their troops if colonial armies, which alone menace them, are left outside of the agreement?

Gentlemen, I have restricted myself to indicating, from a general point of view, some of the reasons which, to my mind, are opposed to the realization of