arrassment
since 1818, was submitted to The Hague tribunal and a decision
rendered, which, though not entirely satisfactory to the United
States, we accepted as the final settlement.

We have uniformly adopted arbitration as a means of settlement for
disputes with the Central and South American Republics. With Mexico
the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, of 1848, stipulates that future
disputes between the two republics shall be submitted to arbitration.
We have a general arbitration treaty for the settlement of pecuniary
claims with all the Central and South American Republics. At the
first Hague Conference, which met in 1899, a general arbitration
treaty was agreed to. It was a non-compulsory arbitration, and at
the time represented the farthest steps in advance in the direction
of arbitration which all the Nations were willing to take together.
That treaty was perfected at the second Hague Conference of 1907;
and, in addition, a series of treaties were agreed to concerning
the opening of hostilities, the laws and customs of war on land,
the rights and duties of neutrals, submarine contact mines,
bombardment by naval forces, the right of capture in naval war,
neutral powers in naval war, an international prize court, and the
discharge of projectiles from balloons, and the Geneva Convention
was revised. Aside from the prize court treaty, concerning which
there were Constitutional objections, these treaties were ratified
by the Senate, the United States being one of the first Nations of
the world to take this step. Unlike the first Hague Conference,
the South American Republics participated in the Second Conference,
and it was the first time in all the world's history that the
representatives of all the independent Nations in the world gathered
together in the interest of peace and agreed on certain principles
which should guide them in the conduct of war, if war must come.

I take pride in the fact that the treaties agreed to at the first
Hague Conference, and the treaties agreed to at the second Hague
Conference, and the series of Mondel treaties, were reported from
the Committee on Foreign Relations, and ratified by the Senate
during my chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations.

The last step to date in the interest of the peaceful settlement
of international disputes has been taken by President Taft in the
arbitration treaties between the United States and Great Britain
and between the United States an