of
war, and in increasing the facilities of commerce. Not long since I made
a pilgrimage to that quaint town hall in that old German city of
Munster, where was signed the Treaty of Westphalia. There I saw the same
long table, the same old seats, where once sat the representatives of
the various powers who in 1648 made the treaty which not only ended the
Thirty Years' War, the most dreadful struggle of modern times--but which
has forever put an end to wars of religion.

I have stood in the midst of grand cathedrals and solemn services, but
never have I sat in any room or in any presence with a greater feeling
of awe than in that old hall where the diplomatists of Europe signed
that world-renowned treaty so fruitful in blessing not only to Germany,
but to all mankind. [Applause.]

We shall all doubtless concede then that on the whole it is best to have
a diplomatic body, that if it only once in ten, or twenty, or one
hundred years, prevents serious misunderstanding between nations, it
will far more than repay its cost. [Applause.]

But the point to which I wish to call your attention, in what little I
have to say this evening, is this: That this idea of the value of
commerce and diplomacy in maintaining peace has by no means always been
held as fully as now, nor are commerce and diplomacy and all they
represent at this moment out of danger. Two hundred years ago a really
great practical statesman in France [Colbert], by crude legislation in
behalf, as he thought, of manufactures and commerce, brought his country
into wars which at last led her to ruin. The history of the colonial
policy of England also is fruitful in mistaken legislation on
commercial, political, and social questions, which have produced the
most terrible evils. Indeed, in all nations we have constantly to lament
the short-sighted policies, ill-considered constitutions, crude
legislation, which have dealt fearful blows to the interests of
commerce, of diplomacy, of political and social life, and of peace.

Nor has our own country been free from these; in our general government
and in all our forty legislatures, there are measures frequently
proposed striking at commercial interests, at financial interests, at
vested rights, to say nothing of great political and social interests,
which, though often thwarted by the common sense of the people, are
sometimes too successful. At this very moment the news comes to us that
a slight majority, led by arrant de