SECOND MEETING MAY 20, 1899 His Excellency Mr. Staal presiding. The meeting opens at 11 o'clock. The President reads the telegram that Her Majesty the Queen has been good enough to address to him in reply to the message of the Conference. HAUSBADEN, May 19, 1899. In thanking your Excellency, as well as the members of the Peace Conference, for the sentiments expressed in your telegram, I take pleasure in seizing this opportunity to repeat my wishes of welcome to my country. I most sincerely trust that, with the help of God, the work of the Conference will realize the generous design of your august sovereign. (Applause.) (Signed) WILHELMINA. The President then reads the telegram that His Majesty the Emperor of Russia has been good enough to address in reply to the telegram of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. ST. PETERSBURG, May 19, 1899. The Emperor begs you to extend to the Conference his sincere thanks and most cordial wishes. My august master charges me to advise your Excellency that His Majesty appreciates the telegram which you have addressed to him. (Signed) COUNT MOURAVIEFF. (Applause.) The Secretary General apprises the Conference of an invitation from the Government of the Netherlands to an artistic celebration to take place June 17. The President states that at the time of inaugurating the work of the Conference, he deems it useful to sum up its design and general purposes, and he expresses himself in these terms: To seek the most efficacious means of assuring to all peoples the blessings of a real and lasting peace, such, in the words of the circular of August 12, is the chief aim of our deliberations. The name "Peace Conference," which the popular mind, outstripping a decision by the Governments in this respect, has given to our meeting, well indicates the essential object of our labors. The Peace Conference cannot fail in the mission incumbent upon it; its deliberations must lead to a tangible result which the whole human race confidently expects. The eagerness with which every Power accepted the proposal contained in the Russian circulars is the most eloquent witness to the favor which peaceful ideas have found in the eyes of all. It is therefore my pleasant duty to request the delegates of all the States here represented to transmit to their respective Governments the repeated expression of the Russian Government's thanks. The very membership of this assembly is a sure guaranty of the spirit in [13] which we shall approach the task entrusted to us. The Governments are represented here by statesmen who have taken active part in shaping the destinies of their countries; by eminent diplomats who have handled the most important matters and who all know that the first need of nations is the maintenance of peace. Beside them are scholars who enjoy a well-deserved renown in the field of international law. The general and higher officers of the army and navy who will assist us in our labors will give us the benefit of their great technical knowledge. The mission of diplomacy, as we all know, is to prevent and to smooth over disputes between States; to moderate rivalries; to conciliate divergent interests; to remove misunderstandings and to substitute good understanding for disagreement. Let me say that, following a general law, diplomacy is no longer merely an art in which personal ability plays an exclusive part; its tendency is to become a science which shall have fixed rules for settling international disputes. Such at the present time is the ideal which it should have before its eyes, and it cannot be disputed that great progress will have been made if diplomacy succeeds in establishing in this Conference some of the rules of which I have just spoken. Accordingly, we shall devote ourselves especially to the generalization and codification of arbitral practice, and of mediation or good offices. These ideas are, so to speak, the very essence of our task, the general goal toward which we are to direct our efforts: the prevention of conflicts by peaceful means. It is not for us to enter into the domain of Utopia. In the work which we are about to undertake we must consider what is possible; we must not devote ourselves to the pursuit of abstractions. Without sacrificing any of our further hopes, we must remain in the land of reality, sound its very depths, so as to lay solid foundations and build on a practical basis. Now, what does reality show us? We perceive that there is a community of material and moral interests between nations, which is constantly increasing. The ties which bind the various branches of the great human family are ever drawing them closer to each other. If a nation wished to remain isolated, it could not. It is one of the gear-wheels of a living mechanism, fruitful in blessings for all. It is part of a single organism. Rivalries doubtless exist; but do they not seem to be rather in the economic field, in the field of great commercial expansion, arising from the same need to spread abroad the surplus energy which cannot find sufficient employment in the mother country? Rivalry in this sense can indeed do good, provided the ideal of justice and the lofty sentiment of the great brotherhood of man soar above it. If, therefore, nations are bound together by so many ties, would it not be well to see what all this means? When a dispute arises between two or more nations, the others, without being directly involved, are seriously affected. The effects of an international conflict in any quarter of the globe echo far and wide. in every direction. That is why third parties cannot remain indifferent to such a conflict. They must bring their powers of conciliation into play to stop it. These truths are not new. At all times there have been thinkers to suggest them, statesmen to apply them; but they claim our attention more than ever at the present time, and the fact that they have been proclaimed by an assembly such as ours will mark an important date in the history of mankind. Peace is the crying need of the nations, and we owe it to mankind, we owe it to the Governments which have entrusted us with their powers and in whose care is the welfare of their people, we owe it to ourselves to do a useful work by specifying the method of employing some of the means of assuring peace. Arbitration and mediation must be included among these means. Diplomacy long ago admitted them in its practice, but diplomacy has not laid down definite rules for applying them; it has not specified the cases to which they may be applied. That is the noble work upon which we are about to direct our energies, sustained by the conviction that we are laboring for the good of all mankind along the road which former generations have laid out for us. But inasmuch as we are firmly resolved to keep away from wild schemes, inasmuch as we recognize that our present task, great as it is, has its limitations, we must also consider another side of the question. If the possibility of armed conflict between nations cannot be absolutely eliminated, it would still be a labor in behalf of humanity to mitigate the horrors of war. The Governments of civilized States have already made international agreements which have marked important stages. It is our task to mark new stages, and in this category of questions the cooperation of the many competent men who are present at this meeting cannot but be most valuable. There are, moreover, certain matters, very far-reaching and very difficult [14] to handle, which likewise pertain to the maintenance of peace, and which, in the opinion of the Imperial Russian Government, might come within the scope of the Conference's investigations. It might be well to investigate whether a limitation of increasing armaments is not required for the well-being of nations. In this matter, it is for the Governments to weigh in their wisdom the interests which they have in charge. Such, gentlemen, are the essential ideas which, it would appear, should guide us in our deliberations. We shall, I am sure, examine them in a spirit at once high-minded and sincerely conciliatory, so as to proceed along the road which leads to more enduring We shall thus perform a useful work for which future generations will thank the sovereigns and heads of States represented in this hall. One of our tasks, gentlemen, should be, in order to assure the progress of our work, to proceed to a division of the labor, a distribution of the burden. I venture, therefore, to submit the following plan for your approval: Three Commissions shall be constituted: The First Commission shall take charge of Articles 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the circular of December 30, 1898. The Second Commission shall take charge of Articles 5, 6, and 7 of the said circular. The Third Commission shall take charge of Article 8 of the same circular. Each Commission may be subdivided into subcommissions. It is understood that the Conference does not consider itself authorized to investigate any question other than those mentioned above. In case of doubt, the Conference shall decide whether or not such and such a proposition brought up in the Commissions comes within the scope of these questions. Each State shall have the right to be represented in each of the Commissions. The first delegates shall designate the members of the respective delegations who are to be members of each Commission. These members may serve on two or more Commissions. As is the rule in plenary meetings, each State shall have only one vote in each Commission. The delegates representing the Governments may take part in all of the meetings of the Commissions. Technical and scientific delegates may attend the plenary meetings of the Conference. The Commissions shall constitute their own bureaus and shall regulate the order of their labors. The proposal of the PRESIDENT is adopted. The President asks the heads of the delegations kindly to communicate to the bureau the names of the delegates who will be nominated to take part in the different commissions. He then asks those of his colleagues who have not already done so, kindly to remit their full powers to the bureau of the Conference. As to those who are not yet in possession of their full powers, he asks them kindly to remit them to the bureau as they are received. The PRESIDENT: We are bound to keep secret our deliberations in the plenary meetings as well as in the meetings of the Commissions. Without breaking this very important rule, it is well, as far as possible, to take into account the legitimate curiosity of the public as to our work, and I ask you kindly to authorize the bureau, under the superintendence of your president, to organize a press bureau. (Assent.) The minutes of the opening meeting are adopted. The President announces that the members of the Conference will be advised by the secretariat of the date and hour of the next meeting. The meeting adjourns at 11:45 o'clock. [15] THIRD MEETING MAY 23, 1899 His Excellency Mr. Staal presiding. The meeting opens at noon. The minutes of the second meeting are adopted. The President invites Mr. VAN KARNEBEEK to submit to the Conference a plan for the organization of the commissions and the distribution of the work. Jonkheer van Karnebeek reads the following proposals: The bureau of each commission will contain honorary presidents, a president, an assistant president and several vice presidents. The presidents and assistant presidents will divide between themselves the presidency of the subcommissions. In virtue of these provisions, Jonkheer van Karnebeek proposes to constitute the bureaus in the following manner: |