nation, its vital interests, or its independence, than those questions
which have already been submitted to arbitration." Denmark has agreed
with Italy and the Netherlands to arbitrate all questions that fail of
diplomatic settlement, thus insuring perpetual peace between those
nations. Here indeed is the pathway of true national honor.

Coincident with the establishment of the legal machinery for
arbitration and the growth thereof, we would naturally have expected a
cessation in the mad race for armament-supremacy. But the very reverse
has happened, and to deal firmly with this contradictory situation is
the third great duty of the next Hague Conference. Of what avail are
our Courts of Arbitral Justice when this intolerable economic waste is
permitted! To limit armaments was the avowed purpose of the First
Hague Conference, but nothing was accomplished save the adoption of a
neatly worded resolution that the limitation aforesaid is "highly
desirable for the enlargement of the material and moral well-being of
humanity." In 1907 the subject was again under discussion, the nations
exhorted to a serious examination of the question--and there the
matter rested. We have reached now an insufferable stage where
effective action must be taken. Let us hear no more that deceptive
catch phrase, "If you want peace prepare for war." When bad blood is
likely to arise between individuals the very worst policy to pursue is
to furnish them with weapons. And so it is with nations. Consider, if
you will, the neck-and-neck race between Great Britain and the German
Empire in the construction of battleships. What fool will call that
preparation for war a guaranty of peace? We might be disposed to admit
the sincerity of those who say we must arm and ever arm to maintain
peace, except that they are too often men with professional and
business interests at stake. In England there have been amazing
revelations of this sinister condition--armament companies with peers,
members of Parliament, newspaper owners, officers of the army and
navy, as stockholders; enormous appropriations forced through
Parliament by interested parties; periodic war scares in newspapers
inspired by armament syndicates. Only recently we read how the great
Krupp firm of Germany had been exposed in its practice of bribing
officials to obtain valuable military information and furnishing
French newspapers with war-scare articles calculated to induce Germany
to increase her a