Failures and Successes at the Second Hague Conference

It is inevitable that any undertaking should be judged primarily from the point of view of what was originally attempted by the participants and expected by onlookers rather than by a strict standard of actual achievement. In most of the unfavorable discussion that has been current during and since the conference, the point of criticism is the opinion that the conference has not fulfilled its avowed purpose, rather than a complete denial of the usefulness of such results as actually have been accomplished. At the very opening session of the conference, M. Nelidoff in his presidential address pointed out in disillusioned language the impossibility of realizing certain general ideals that had been entertained with respect to these great meetings. He admitted that “we need not be discouraged from dreaming of the ideal of universal peace and the fraternity of peoples, considering that the essential condition of all progress is the pursuit of an ideal towards which we always strive without ever reaching it. Nevertheless, we should not be too ambitious.†He concluded by saying: “Let us set bravely to work, our path lit up by the bright star of universal peace which we shall never reach but which will always guide us.†While some among M. Nelidoff's audience approved of his cautious conservatism, others felt that his utterances had received an unduly pessimistic tinge from the unfortunate position in which Russia has found herself since the war. Nevertheless, when we now review the efforts and the accomplished work of the conference, we may take as the keynote, the words of the presiding officer, pointing out inevitable limitations and bidding us look for results not in sweeping resolutions, but in detailed and specific arrangements which at first sight may appear somewhat trivial and of a purely technical nature.