The Second International Peace Conference, like its predecessor of 1899, endeavored to humanize the hardships necessarily incident to war and to substitute for a resort to arms a pacific settlement of international grievances, which, if unsettled, might lead to war or make the maintenance of pacific relations difficult and problematical. The conference of 1907, no more than its immediate predecessor, satisfied the leaders of humanitarian thought. War was not abolished, nor was peace legislated into existence. Universal disarmament was as unacceptable in 1907 as in 1899, and some few nations were still unwilling to bind themselves to refer all international disputes not involving independence, vital interests, or national honor to a court of arbitration.

The First Hague Conference had as its main object a consideration of a “ possible reduction of the excessive armaments which weigh upon all nations,” or, at least, a discussion of the possibility of “ putting an end to the progressive development of the present armaments.” The conference early realized that even a limitation of the increase of military and naval expenditure was impracticable at that time, and devoted its chief energies to the secondary purpose for which it was called, viz., to discuss and devise “ the most effectual means of insuring to all peoples the benefits of a real and durable peace.”

The convention as drawn up is substantially the same as the proposition submitted by the French delegation — and that proposition follows in the main the text adopted by the Institute de Droit International at its meeting at Ghent (September, 1906), when the whole subject was carefully discussed.

With a view to the systematic discussion of the questions inscribed upon its program, the membership of the conference was divided into four great committees, to each of which a related group of subjects was assigned for investigation with a view to the formulation of such stipulations as might be deemed worthy of insertion in a general convention.

The convention of the Second Hague Conference respecting the subject of contract claims alleged to be due by one state to the subjects of another has a special interest to the citizens of the twentyone American republics, particularly the first article of the convention, which reads as follows:

Hugo Grotius says, at the close of Chapter XVII, Book III, of his work De jure belli ac pacis, that it may be advantageous (for a neutral) to make a convention with each of the belligerents so that it may be allowed to abstain from the war with the consent of both sides. This opinion of the father of the law of nations might be deemed to be well reasoned in 1625, but it reads very strangely in 1908.

The Central American Peace Conference which met at Washington on November 14 and adjourned December 20, 1907, in accordance with the protocol between the Eepublica of Costa Eica, Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, signed at Washington, September 17, 1907, is not only in accord with the general tendency of our times toward more helpful relations between neighboring nations, but is a direct outgrowth of a policy which has repeatedly led to similar conferences with a view to promote a better under-standing and a more complete cooperation between the republics of Central America.

So much has already been said about the Peace Conference of Central America, which recently met in Washington, that some may deem it unnecessary to say anything more about its aims and projects; but we feel that, very important as all its plans are, one of them is so particularly momentous that we can not help devoting to it a few serious observations.