The wish that the proposal which contemplates the declaration of the inviolability of private property in naval warfare may be referred to a subsequent conference for consideration. The subject has accordingly been included in the present programme and the way is open for its consideration. It will be appropriate for you to advocate the proposition formulated and presented by the American delegates to the First Conference, as follows: The private property of all citizens or subjects of the signatory Powers, with the exception of contraband of war, shall be exempt from capture or seizure on the high seas, or elsewhere by the armed vessels or by the military forces of any of the said signatory Powers. But nothing herein contained shall extend exemption from seizure to vessels and their cargoes which may attempt to enter a port blockaded by the naval forces of any of the said Powers. 7. Since the code of rules for the government of military operations on land was adopted by the First Peace Conference there have been occasions for its application under very severe conditions, notably in the South African war and the war between Japan and Russia. Doubtless the Powers involved in those conflicts have had occasion to observe many particulars in which useful additions or improvements might be made. You will consider their suggestions with a view to reducing, so far as is practicable, the evils of war and protecting the rights of neutrals. As to the framing of a convention relative to the customs of maritime warfare, you are referred to the naval war code promulgated in General Orders 551 of the Navy Department of June 27, 1900, which has met with general commendation by naval authorities throughout the civilized world, and which, in general, expresses the views of the United States, subject to a few specific amendments suggested in the volume of international law discussions of the Naval War College of the year 1903, pages 91 to 97. The order putting this code into force was revoked by the Navy Department in 1904, not because of any change of views as to the rules which it contained, but because many of those rules, being imposed upon the forces of the United States by the order, would have put our naval forces at a disadvantage as against the forces of other Powers, upon whom the rules were not binding. The whole discussion of these rules contained in the volume to which I have referred is commended to your careful study. You will urge upon the Peace Conference the formulation of international rules for war at sea and will offer the naval w code of 1900, with the suggested changes and such fumber changes as may be made necessary by other agreements reached at the Conference, as a tentative formulation of the rules which should be considered. 8. The clause of the programme relating to the rights and duties of neutrals is of very great importance and in itself would furnish matter for useful discussion suficient to occupy the time and justify the labors of the Conference. The various subjects which the Conference may be called upon to consider are likely to bring out proposals which should be considered in their relation to each other, as standing in the following order of substantial importance: (1) Provisions tending to prevent disagreements between nations. (2) Provisions tending to dispose of disagreements vition war. (3) Provisions tending to preserve the rights and interesta of neutrals. (4) Provisions tending to mitigate the evils of war to be ger ents. 1 The relative importance of these classes of provisions divid always be kept in mind. No rules should be acopted for the purpose of mitigating the evils of war to belligerente wich wl! tend strongly to destroy the rights of neutrals, and to ri should be adopted regarding the rights of neutrals which will tend strongly to bring about war. It is of the Eiglet importance that not only the rights but the duties of neutrals shall be most clearly and distinctly defined and understood, not only because the evils which belligerent nations bring upon themselves ought not to be allowed to spread to their peaceful neighbors and inflict unnecessary injury upon the rest of mankind, but because misunderstandings regarding the rights and duties of neutrals constantly tend to involve them in controversy with one or the other belligerent. For both of these reasons, special consideration should be given to an agreement upon what shall be deemed to constitute contraband of war. There has been a recent tendency to extend widely the list of articles to be treated as contraband; and it is probable that if the belligerents themselves are to determine at the beginning of a war what shall be contraband, this tendency will continue until the list of contraband is made to include a large proportion of all the articles which are the subject of commerce, upon the ground that they will be useful to the enemy. When this result is reached, especially if the doctrine of continuous voyages is applied at the same time, the doctrine that free ships make free goods and the doctrine that blockades in order to be binding must be effective, as well as any rule giving immunity to the property of belligerents at sea, will be deprived of a large part of their effect, and we shall find ourselves going backward instead of forward in the effort to prevent every war from becoming universally disastrous. The exception of contraband of war in the Declaration of Paris will be so expanded as to very largely destroy the effect of the declaration. On the other hand, resistance to this tendency toward the expansion of the list of contraband ought not to be left to the neutrals affected by it at the very moment when war exists because that is the process by which neutrals become themselves involved in You should do all in your power to bring about an agreement upon what is to constitute contraband; and it is very desirable that the list should be limited as narrowly as possible. war. With these instructions there will be furnished to you copies of the diplomatic correspondence relating to the Conference, the instructions to the delegates to the First Conference which are in all respects reaffirmed and their report, the international law discussions of the Naval War College of 1903, the report of the American delegates to the Conference of the American Republics at Rio de Janeiro in 1906, and the report of the American delegates to the Geneva Conference of 1906 for the revision of the Red Cross Convention of 1864. Following the precedent established by the commission to the First Conference, all your reports and communications to this Government will be made to the Department of State for proper consideration and eventual preservation in the archives. The records of your commission will be kept by your secretary, Mr. Chandler Hale. Should you be in doubt at any time regarding the meaning or effect of these instructions, or should you con sider at any time that there is occasion for special instructions, you will communicate freely with the Department of State by telegraph. It is the President's earnest wish that you may contribute materially to the effective work of the Conference and that its deliberations may result in making international justice more certain and international peace more secure. I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant, ELIHU ROOT. REPORT OF THE DELEGATES OF THE UNITED STATES TO THE SECOND IN- HON. ELIHU ROOT, Secretary of State. Sir: Pursuant to a request of the Interparliamentary Union, held at St. Louis, in 1904, that a future peace conference be held and that the President of the United States invite all nations to send representatives to such a conference, the late Secretary of State, at the direction of the President, instructed, on October 21, 1904, the representatives of the United States accredited to each of the signatories to the acts of the Hague Conference of 1899 to present overtures for a second conference to the ministers for foreign affairs of the respective countries. The replies received to this circular instruction of October 21, 1904, indicated that the proposition for the calling of a second conference met with general favor. At a later period it was intimated by Russia that the initiator of the First Conference was, owing to the restoration of peace in the Orient, disposed to undertake the calling of a new conference to continue as well to supplement the work of the first. The offer of the Czar to take steps requisite to convene a second international peace conference was gladly welcomed by the President, and the Final Act of the Conference only recites in its preamble the invitation of the President. The Russian Government thus assumed the calling of the Conference, and on April 12, 1906, submitted the following programme, which was acceptable to the Powers generally and which served as the basis of the work of the Conference: 1. Improvements to be made in the provisions of the convention relative to the peaceful settlement of international disputes as regards the Court of Arbitration and the international commissions of inquiry. 2. Additions to be made to the provisions of the convention of 1899 relative to the laws and customs of war on land-among others, those con |