that, moreover, by the designation "vessel with a ram," should not be understood a war vessel possessing a reinforced stem.

The representative of the Russian Government, Mr. SCHEINE, who was not instructed to formulate any propositions on the question put to a vote, intends to ask for instructions; he is nevertheless convinced that his Government, in placing this question on the program, rather had it in mind to ascertain the opinions of the different Governments.

It is shown from the opinions expressed by the delegates, Messrs. SIEGEL, MAHAN, SOLTYK, PÉPHAU, SIR JOHN FISHER, and SAKAMOTO, that the prohibition (even under reservation as regards unanimity) could not go into force until after the expiration of a certain period before which it would be necessary to allow the Governments the necessary time to finish the vessels already under construction.

It would, moreover, be very desirable to exclude likewise from this prohibition all vessels already projected in accordance with a determined plan of organization. With these restrictions the proposition to prohibit vessels with a ram secured the consent of the majority of the delegates on condition that the consent should be unanimous.

However, this unanimity was lacking because the delegates from Germany, Austria-Hungary, Denmark and Sweden and Norway were unable to join in it.

The delegate of the Imperial Russian Government having expressed his intention at one of the recent meetings to submit to the subcommission two new propositions, one looking toward the possibility of a compulsory admission of naval attachés on board the vessels of the belligerent, treating them on the same footing as military attachés already admitted in the general headquarters of land armies, and the other having rather a humane purpose in view, that is to say, the possibility of finding effective means for covering the rams of war vessels in time of peace in order thus to diminish the disastrous consequences of collisions, the said subcommission declared that it was incompetent to reach any decision in this regard. It based its unanimous opinion on the fact that, with respect to the first proposition, the settlement of such a question ought to be reserved solely for an agreement between the neutral nation and one of the belligerents and that with regard to the second it ought to be submitted to a special technical committee.

Thanking you, gentlemen, once more for the indulgence which you have kindly shown me, I propose to you to present, on behalf of the subcommission, our special thanks to the president for the impartial and competent manner in which he has directed our labors.

We also owe an expression of thanks to the members of the general secretariat for their devoted collaboration.

COUNT SOLTYK.

FOURTH MEETING

JUNE 23, 1899

His Excellency Mr. Beernaert presiding.

The minutes of the meeting of June 22 are read and approved without modification.

The President thanks the secretariat for the promptness with which it has reported the minutes in such complete form. (Approval.)

The Delegate of Siam asks that the declaration read by Sir JOHN ARDAGH [20] in the preceding meeting relative to dumdum bullets be printed.

General Sir John Ardagh says that he too attaches the greatest importance to having the public appreciate the force of the argument that he has advanced in favor of the harmlessness of the dumdum bullets.

The President states that there is no objection to printing the declaration made by the English delegate.

It will take place.

Mr. Raffalovich believes that in order to be impartial, it would be necessary to place the entire record before the eyes of the public. He asks therefore that not only the declaration of Sir JOHN ARDAGH, but also the opposite arguments, be printed.

Captain Crozier asks that the text of the proposition that he has formulated be inserted in the summary proceedings.

On the motion of Colonel Gilinsky it is decided that all that part of the minutes of the meeting of June 22 relative to bullets shall be printed in full.

General Sir John Ardagh says that after the decision which has just been taken there is no need for insisting on a correction of the summary proceedings, where perhaps too much space has been given to the observations presented by Colonel GROSS VON SCHWARZHOFF relative to the non-existence of a factory of arms at Tübingen; it is certainly not in the words of Sir JOHN ARDAGH that Colonel GROSS VON SCHWARZHOFF has been able to find any basis for the remarks he made.

Colonel Gross von Schwarzhoff answers that indeed he had at no time the idea of addressing Sir JOHN ARDAGH; but that, as German bullets were spoken of as German dumdums, both in this high assembly and in the papers, he believed that he was obliged to protest at the outset against a fiction about to be created.

The President says that the full reproduction of the minutes will give entire satisfaction to Sir JOHN ARDAGH and Mr. GROSS VON SCHWARZHOFF.

The PRESIDENT asks the assembly to pass to the discussion of the part of the report of Count SOLTYK relative to prohibition of submarine or diving terpedo boats and the construction in the future of war vessels with rams. There was no vote on these two questions in the subcommission, and it is for the Commission to decide them.

No one having asked the floor, the prohibition of submarine or diving torpedo-boats is put to vote.

Five States: Belgium, Greece, Persia, Siam and Bulgaria, vote for the prohibition with reservation; five States: Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Japan and Roumania, vote for prohibition under the reservation of unanimity; nine States: the United States of America, Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Spain, France, Portugal, Sweden and Norway, Netherlands and Turkey, vote in the negative. Russia, Serbia and Switzerland abstain from voting.

The President puts to a vote the conventional prohibition against constructing war vessels with rams. He remarks that this prohibition does not contemplate ships with reinforced stems.

Four States: France, Greece, Siam and Bulgaria, adopted the prohibition. Seven States: the United States of America, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Persia, Netherlands and Roumania, adopted it under the reservation of unanimity. Seven States rejected it: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Norway, and Turkey.

Four States abstained from voting: Belgium, Russia, Serbia and Switzerland. The President recalls that there was represented to the subcommission the suitableness of seeking means to cover the rams of war vessels in time of peace in such a manner as to lessen the disastrous consequences of collisions but that the subcommission thought it was without jurisdiction, the question having to be abandoned to the domestic law of each State.

The PRESIDENT asks if it is wished to reopen this discussion in the full meeting; but nobody asks the floor.

The PRESIDENT conveys the thanks of the Commission to General DEN BEER POORTUGAEL and to Count SOLTYK who have so ably accomplished the delicate and complicated task that the subcommissions had entrusted to them.

The Commission passes to the examination of the first subject in the circular of Count MOURAVIEFF.

His Excellency Mr. Beernaert sets forth the importance of the discussion which is about to open, in these words:

We have now reached the serious problem which the Russian Government first raised in terms which immediately compelled the attention of the world.

Faithful to the traditions of his predecessors, and notably of Alexander I, [21] who, in 1816, attempted to found eternal peace through disarmament, Czar NICHOLAS asks a reduction of military expenses, or at least a limitation of their increase. He does this in terms the gravity of which can hardly be exaggerated.

For once it is a great sovereign who thinks that the enormous charges which, since 1871, have resulted from the state of armed peace now seen in Europe are of a nature to undermine and paralyze public prosperity in their source, and that their ever-increasing progress upward will produce a crushing burden which the peoples will carry with greater and greater difficulty. It is for this evil that he. wishes Europe to find a remedy.

The circular of Count MOURAVIEFF defines the problem with greater precision in presenting it under this double aspect: what are the means of setting a limit to the progressive increase of armaments? Can the nations agree by common accord not to increase them or even to reduce them?

But it is for me rather to indicate the aim than to outline think that this latter should be formulated distinctly.

solution, and I

The subject is difficult, and it would be impossible to exaggerate its importance, for the question of armed peace is not only bound closely with that of public wealth and the highest form of progress, but also with that of social peace. This is one more reason why we should give clear and formal bases to our discussion. Thus, for example, should the engagement provide for the number of effective forces or for the amount of the budgets of military expenses, or at the same time for both?

How should the figures be fixed and verified?

Should the armies of to-day be taken as a point of departure? Should some last complement be admitted or should some other proportion be decided on? Should naval forces be dealt with the same as armies? What should be done with colonial defenses?

I hope that our eminent president, his Excellency Mr. STAAL, who will now address us, will enlighten us on these different points.

His Excellency Mr. Staal delivered the following address:

Mr. PRESIDENT: I would like to add some words to the eloquent remarks which you have just made; I should like to state precisely the thought by which the Russian Government is inspired and to indicate at the same time the stages through which the question now before us has passed.

Since the month of August, 1898, the Russian Government has invited the Powers to seek, by the aid of international discussion, the most efficacious means of setting a limit to the progressive development of the present

armaments.

A cordial and sympathetic welcome was given to the request of the Imperial Government by all the Powers that are represented here. At the same time, notwithstanding the enthusiasm with which this proposal was received, the Russian Government considered it necessary to obtain information from the Cabinets in order to decide whether the present time seemed favorable for the convocation of a conference of which the first object would properly be this restriction of armament.

The responses which are given us, the acceptance of the program sketched in the circular of December 30, 1898, and in which the first point looks to the nonaugmentation for a fixed term of the existing armies, led us to take the initiative in the Peace Conference. It is thus, gentlemen, that we find ourselves assembled at The Hague, animated by a spirit of conciliation, and that our good-will is met by a common work to be accomplished.

Our two subcommissions have taken up points 2, 3, and 4 of the circular of December 30. These are, without doubt, technical and special difficulties, whose importance I am not in a position to appreciate, and which have prevented our reaching all the decisions desired. The Commission besides has expressed the wish to refer some of these questions to a later Conference.

Let us examine the essential point which has been referred to this Commission; it is the question of the limitation of budgets and of actual armaments. It seems to me indispensably necessary to insist that this important question should be made the subject of a most profound study, constituting, as it does, the first purpose for which we are here united, that of alleviating, as far as possible, the dreadful burden which weighs upon the peoples, and which hinders their material and even moral development. The forces of human activity are absorbed in an increasing proportion by the expenses of the military and naval budgets. As General DEN BEER POORTUGAEL has said so eloquently, it is the most important

functions of civilized Governments which are paralyzed by this state of affairs, and which are thus relegated to the second place.

Armed peace to-day causes more considerable expense than the most burden[22] some war of former times. If one of our great Commissions has been charged with the duty of alleviating or mitigating the horrors of war, it is to you, gentlemen, that the equally grand task has been assigned to alleviate the burdens of peace, especially those which result from incessant competition in the way of armaments.

I may be permitted to hope that on this point, at least, the desires of anxious populations who are following our labors with a constant interest shall not be balked. The disappointment would be cruel.

It is for this reason that I ask you to give all of your attention to the proposition which the technical delegates of Russia will present to you. You will see that these propositions constitute in very truth a minimum.

Is it necessary for me to declare that we are not speaking of Utopias or chimerical measures? We are not considering disarmament. What we are hoping for, is to attain a limitation-a halt in the ascending course of armaments and expenses. We propose this with the conviction that if such an agreement is established, progress in other directions will be made-slowly perhaps, but surely. Immobility is an impossibility in history, and if we shall only be able for some years to provide for a certain stability, everything points to the belief that a tendency toward a diminution of military charges will be able to grow and to develop. Such a movement would correspond entirely to the ideas which have inspired the Russian circulars.

But we have not yet attained to this point. For the moment we aspire to the attainment of stability for a fixed limitation of the number of effectives and of military budgets.

General den Beer Poortugael, delegate of the Netherlands, takes the floor and speaks as follows:

We now have before us the first subject of the circular of Count MOURAVIEFF, which has been reserved as the most difficult question but also the most important one to solve. It certainly deserves that all our faculties be concentrated in one supreme effort. It is necessary for us to take into account the great interests of the peoples affected, and I think I am not going too far in saying that the question should be entered upon by us with a certain deference.

For a quarter of a century-you know it, gentlemen, better than I-the effective land and sea forces and, consequently, the war budgets of all European nations have only increased from year to year. They have at present reached proportions that are gigantic, disquieting, and dangerous. Four million men under arms with the total yearly military budget of five billion francs! Is it not frightful?

I know well that these soldiers are kept under arms only to maintain peace; sovereigns have in view only the safety of the people they govern; States sincerely believe that all this outfit, these armed forces, are necessary for their preservation.

But they are mistaken. It is towards their inevitable loss, their own destruction slow but sure, that they are working when they continue in this way.

Please understand me. I am far from being a Utopian. I do not believe in an eternal peace, I even think that the wars can in exceptional cases be inevitable and salutary, by purifying, like a storm, the political atmosphere, and by freeing us from several meannesses that materialism and love of money foster.