& WA VN'US C- it Ml International Conciliation Published monthly by the American Association for International Conciliation. Entered as second class matter at New York, N. Y., Postoffice, February 23, 1909, under act of July 16, 1894 THE INTERPARLIAMENTARY UNION BY CHRISTIAN L. LANGE Secretary General APRIL, 1913, No. 65 American Association for International Conciliation Sub-station 84 ( 407 West II 7th Street) New York City The Executive Committee of the Association for International Conciliation wish to arouse the interest of the American people in the progress of the movement for promoting international peace and relations of comity and good fellowship between nations. To this end they print and circulate documents giving information as to the progress of these movements, in order that indi¬ vidual citizens, the newspaper press, and organi¬ zations of various kinds may have readily available accurate information on these subjects. A list of publications will be found on page 15. Christian L. Lange, the author of the present pamphlet, formerly Secretary of the Nobel Com¬ mittee of the Norwegian Parliament, is now Honorary Councilor at the Nobel Institute. In 1907 he was Technical Delegate from Norway to the Hague Conference, and since 1909 he has been Secretary General of the Interparliamentary Union. THE INTERPARLIAMENTARY UNION On October 31, 1887, a delegation of British Mem¬ bers of Parliament and of leaders of Trades Unions were introduced to President Cleveland at the White House by Mr. Andrew Carnegie. They had come to submit to the President an address, signed by 234 Members of Parliament, in favor of a treaty of arbi¬ tration between Great Britain and the United States. At that time such treaties between states were very rare; no European country had as yet signed a single such document, nor had the United States. Some South American States only were parties to them. This movement which William Randal Cremer had initiated in England found its echo in America, and during the legislative session of 1887-1888 Congress was flooded with memorials, some containing the names of very prominent persons, in favor of inter¬ national arbitration. Nevertheless, the project of an Anglo-American treaty failed; the only outcome of the movement was the vote by the Senate in 1890 of a resolution favoring general arbitration treaties. FOUNDATION OF THE UNION This effort, however, was very important: out of it the Interparliamentary Union was born. Cremer had learned that Frederic Passy, leader of the Peace Party in the French Chamber, had already voiced the cause of arbitration there, and that he had found considerable support. In 1888 Cremer opened communications with Passy, and on October 31, 1888, exactly a year after the interview at the White House, a meeting was held in Paris, attended by twenty-five French and nine British parliamentarians. The pro- 3 gramme of the meeting was strictly limited to the support of the efforts of the last years in favor of arbitration treaties between France and the United States and between Great Britain and the United States. Nobody was sanguine enough to dream even of an Arbitration Treaty between France and Great Britain. The next meeting, which is considered as the first Interparliamentary Conference properly speaking, took place, again in Paris, in the following year, dur¬ ing the World’s Fair, on June 29 and 30, 1889. It was really international in character: ninety-six mem¬ bers of nine different parliaments attended; fifty-five Frenchmen, thirty British, five Italians, while each of the following nations was represented by one mem¬ ber: Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Liberia, Spain and the United States. The Conference was opened by Jules Simon and presided over by Frederic Passy. In one of its resolutions the Conference gave the fundamental reason of the interparliamentary institu¬ tion : “ The Conduct of Governments tending to be¬ come more and more the expression only of ideas and sentiments voiced by the body of citizens, it is for the electors to lead the policy of their country in the direc¬ tion of justice, of right and of the brotherhood of nations.” DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNION Up to the present time (end of 1912) the members of the Union have met seventeen times in Conference: twice in Paris (1889 and 1900), twice in London (1890 and 1906), four times at Brussels (1895, 1897, 1905 and 1910), once in each of the following Euro¬ pean capitals: Rome (1891), Berne (1892), The Hague (1894), Budapesth (1896), Christiania (1899), 4 Vienna (1903), Berlin (1908). Once the Interparlia¬ mentarians have crossed the Atlantic to meet on American soil at St. Louis and in Washington in 1904. In September, 1912, the 17th Conference was held at Geneva, in Switzerland. WORK OF THE UNION The parliamentarians that founded the Union in Paris in 1889 very narrowly circumscribed its object through its name. It was called the Interparlia¬ mentary Conference for International Arbitra¬ tion, another proof of the power of concentration of its founder, Randal Cremer. There is no doubt that through this rigid exclusion of utopian aims, through the accentuation of one practical aim, the institution appealed to the common sense of hard-headed poli¬ ticians, and it was thus possible, during the first diffi¬ cult years, to win the confidence and adhesion of men who otherwise would certainly have held aloof. But as the Union progressed in numbers and its influ¬ ence extended, other problems than those of arbitra¬ tion were discussed, all, however, relating to the progressive evolution and organization of the Society of Nations. The Conferences have passed resolutions regarding neutrality and the laws of war. They have several times declared in favor of the immunity of pri¬ vate property at sea during war, a reform so ardently demanded by the common interests of peaceful com¬ merce. Two Conferences have adopted a voeu in favor of the elaboration of a Code of International Law. Some of them have discussed the problems relating to the growth of international armaments. But up to the present time the Interparliamentarians have always limited themselves to the discussion of 5 questions relating to International Law ; they have never discussed economic questions and they have always expressly refused to pronounce themselves on problems of a political nature, in which the interests of different states might be opposed. The latter principle is one inevitably bound up with the character of the institution itself. Because the Union is composed of responsible statesmen, belong¬ ing to nations whose legitimate interests may from time to time be in conflict, it would inevitably com¬ promise its own authority if it raised its voice for or against this or the other practical solution of inter¬ national conflicts. The Interparliamentary gatherings have, without exception, always restricted themselves to the advocacy of peaceful and judicial methods for the settlement of conflicts. THE PERMANENT COURT OF ARBITRATION The two first Interparliamentary Conferences had only treated one side of the problem of arbitration, namely, the conclusion of treaties stipulating the obli¬ gation for the states to submit conflicts to arbitration. The Rome Conference, in 1891, tackled another side of the problem: it invited the Interparliamentary Com¬ mittees to put on the agenda of the following Con¬ ference the institution of an Arbitration Court. This would mean important progress in two respects: from a practical standpoint, the recourse to arbitration would be facilitated if it were not necessary to organ¬ ize the tribunal while the conflict was still exasperating the minds on both sides, and from a theoretical stand¬ point the existence of such a Court would show the state of progress of the society of nations. Indeed, it is only by the permanent existence of a jurisdiction 6 resting on law that a society manifests itself as legally organized. The question occupied the three following con¬ ferences. The Brussels Conference, of 1895, on the proposal of two members whom the Union still rejoices to see at its head, the Hon. Philip Stanhope, now Lord Weardale, and the venerable Belgian Senator Au¬ guste Houzeau de Lehaie, voted a draft convention in fourteen articles, which was communicated to the different Governments. This draft reposed on the following principles: 1. National sovereignty remains inalienable and in¬ violable ; 2. The adherence of each Government to the con¬ stitution of an International Permanent Court should be purely voluntary; 3. All adherent states should be on a footing of perfect equality before the International Permanent Court; 4. The judgments of the Permanent Court should have the form of an executive sentence. Four years later, in 1899, the first Peace Conference was convened at The Hague. The great Convention voted by the Conference “ For the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes ” to a large extent rests on the convention drafted by the Interparliamentary Union. Thus it places all states on a footing of per¬ fect equality with respect to the Arbitration Court created by the Convention. This was a real victory for the ideas championed by the Union. It has even been said that the calling of the Hague Conference itself was due to the inter- 7 parliamentary movement, especially to the Budapesth Conference in 1896. CALLING OF THE SECOND HAGUE CONFERENCE And this explains why the St. Louis Conference in 1904, which was presided over by Mr. Richard Bartholdt, Member of Congress, and Founder of the American Group of the Union, took the initiative to solicit the convocation of another Peace Conference. Mr. Theodore E. Burton, then member of Congress, now United States Senator, introduced the question at St. Louis. In the resolution voted on his motion, there are three interesting points to be noted. Two subjects are indicated as worthy of discussion at the proposed Conference: 1, The conclusion of arbitra¬ tion treaties between the states represented, stipulat¬ ing their obligation to have recourse to arbitration; 2, the periodicity of the international congresses, which would thus form a legislative institution within the society of nations, by the side of the judiciary created by the first Hague Conference. Thirdly, the resolution ends with a respectful re¬ quest to the President of the United States of America to take the initiative of calling the conference. On the 24th of September, 1904, the Secretary Gen¬ eral of the Union, Mr. Gobat of Switzerland, on be¬ half of the members of the Interparliamentary Con¬ ferences, transmitted the resolution to President Roosevelt at the White House in Washington. Mr. Roosevelt ended his reply to the address with the following words: “ At an early date I shall issue the call for the conference you request.” This initiative produced, three years later, the meet¬ ing of the second Hague Conference. MODEL ARBITRATION TREATY In the meantime the Union was actively occupied with the framing of the programme for this new Conference. This work entirely filled the time of the two general assemblies, at Brussels in 1905, and at London in 1906. On a special point the London Con¬ ference voted a draft of an international convention and took a new step forward in the arbitration ques¬ tion, still the chief object of the Union. Indeed, if the Court instituted by the first Hague Conference should be able to exert all its usefulness, it was necessary that the states engaged themselves to have recourse to arbitration for certain classes of conflicts. The model arbitration treaty was originally due to the initiative of Mr. Richard Bartholdt. It was voted by the London Conference on the remarkable re¬ port submitted, on behalf of a special Commission, by His Excellency Ernest De Plener, late Austrian Min¬ ister of Finance. At the Hague Conference of 1907 it was adopted by the Portuguese Delegates and by them submitted to the Arbitration Commission. Around this draft convention were fought the most prolonged struggles of the conference. During these debates the draft was limited in certain respects, but considerably extended in others. At first received very coolly, it found successively a more and more numerous following, and at last it united the votes of thirty-two states, out of the forty-four represented at The Hague. This was not sufficient. The principle of the neces¬ sity of a unanimous vote, which is regularly followed in diplomatic conferences, again prevailed, as the minority refused to give way. The Conference passed a unanimous declaration, however, in favor of the 9 principle of obligatory arbitration: “ Some conflicts, especially those concerning the interpretation and ap¬ plication of international conventions, are liable to be submitted to obligatory arbitration without any re¬ striction.” THE BERLIN CONFERENCE AND THE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNION The Union could point to a moral victory: at The Hague the majority had rallied to its standpoint; but it had not found unanimous favor. In order to gain a complete victory it was necessary to redouble the efforts and to concentrate them. From this standpoint the 15th Interparliamentary Conference should be looked at. It met at Berlin in September, 1908, and was of particular importance, for the organization of the Union. During the first years the Union had no permanent organization. The Conferences invited their members to form “ Interparliamentary Committees ” in each country. This is the origin of the present groups. At the Rome Conference, in 1891, the foundation of a Central Office was discussed, and the creation of a provisional secretariat was decided upon. A final organization was not instituted until the Berne Confer¬ ence, in 1892. It founded the Interparliamentary Bureau, which should serve as Central Office of the Union, under management of the Swiss member of the Committee. The Bureau was at first under the control of a permanent Committee, the rules of which for some years were rather unstable and changing. It was only at the Christiania Conference, in 1899, that some sta¬ bility was obtained, through the creation of the Inter- 10 * parliamentary Council, composed of two members from each Group. The aim of the reorganization decided upon at Berlin in 1908 was, then, on one hand, to strengthen the central authorities of the Union with a view to create a strong executive; on the other, to vivify, through this concentration of the forces, the national Groups which must needs be the essential supporting elements of the institution. This new organization necessitated considerable ex¬ penditure. In order to meet this, the Union made an appeal to its different groups, asking them to assure an annual revenue. Before this the Union had been sup¬ ported by the individual contributions of members, one state only, Norway, having voted annually an official subvention. At the Berlin Conference, Lord Wear- dale, one of the principal promoters of the reorganiza¬ tion, announced that the British Government proposed to grant to the Union an annual subsidy of £300. He was also able to announce that an International Com¬ mittee, the representative of which was the American Branch of the Association for International Con¬ ciliation, was willing to guarantee an annual subven¬ tion for five years, or until the different states had re¬ solved upon their attitude toward the Union. The appeal of the Union has been responded to by nearly all the states in which Groups are in existence. Only in a very few cases the Groups themselves have to contribute to the funds. The Union is now assured of an annual income of between $12,000 and $14,000. This official connection between the Union and the Governments is a fact of great importance. The nations do not pay for nothing. They give their money 11 because they expect to have something in return, and they have, so to speak, bound themselves to take into serious consideration the drafts presented to them by the Interparliamentarians. The Union has thus be¬ come one of the active elements in the organization of the coming Society of Nations. THE NEW ORGANIZATION The new organization may be said to coordinate in a wise way the different forces of the Union. Its highest authority is the Conference, which meets annually, or every second year. 1 All the members of the Union are entitled to meet at the Conference, but several Groups have adopted the practice of designating Delegates. The Confer¬ ence passes resolutions on the problems before the Union and maps out a sort of programme for the na¬ tional Groups during the ensuing year. The Council is the highest administrative authority of the Union. It decides what questions may be brought before the Conferences and passes upon the draft resolutions to be submitted to them. It has, besides, the control of the finances, accepts gifts and subventions and fixes the estimates for the following year. It nominates the treasurer and the secretary general and passes upon their annual reports. The Executive Committee of five has the control of the Interparliamentary Bureau, which is managed by the Secretary General, fixing its annual programme and directing the main lines of its activity. NATIONAL GROUPS The most important elements in the Interparliamen¬ tary Organization, however, must needs be the Na- 1 The next Conference is to meet at The Hague in August or September next for the inauguration of the Peace Palace. 12 tional Groups. If they are not really active and living forces, the best and wisest resolutions of the Confer¬ ences will have no sanction. The Union is at present composed of twenty-two Groups 1 and some 3,600 individual parliamentarians figure on its lists. This appears quite an imposing number, but it should be borne in mind—first, that the entire total of all parliamentarians in these coun¬ tries amounts to 9,718, so that the Union at present only registers about 37% of active parliamentarians in these states; secondly, that there are some twenty con¬ stitutional states as yet completely outside the Union, as, for instance, all of the Latin-American States; thirdly, that the existing Groups differ widely in number and in activity. While some are splendidly organized and have established a real influence on their Parliaments, others are borne up only by the devoted interest of some few individual members. Even if the Group is numerous, this is of small use if it has no corporate life of its own. WORK BEFORE THE UNION The great object before the Union is to prepare through parliamentary action the passing into inter¬ national law of the reforms it has at heart, above everything else the substitution, in international dis¬ putes, of pacific methods for naked force. We have seen how, since the institution of the Peace Confer¬ ences at The Hague, the Interparliamentary Confer¬ ences have centered their activity round the prepara¬ tion of the work to be done there, and it is quite natural that at present, when the day of the third 1 Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Roumania, Russia, Servia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Switzerland and the United States of America. 13 Hague Conference is drawing near, the minds of the Interparliamentarians are more and more bent on the programme of that meeting. Several Commissions have been instituted in order to study a whole series of problems to be brought before the Conference, and eventually to prepare draft conventions. No international legislature is in existence. Inter¬ national law is enacted through treaties or conventions and no power is party to a treaty without its having been ratified by the competent authorities of the coun¬ try. This gives a twofold duty to the Interparlia¬ mentary Union. Not only must it try to prepare a programme and proposals for the diplomatic Confer¬ ences entrusted with the drafting of international Conventions, but when this part of the work is done it must try to bring it about through the action of its groups that these conventions obtain the ratification of the different states. Thus, at the last Interparliamentary Conference, which met at Geneva on September 18, 19 and 20, 1912, there were discussed problems of international law and policy, such as arbitration and mediation, limitation of armaments and aerial warfare, organiza¬ tion of the Peace Conferences at The Hague and the right of nationalities, and for several of these ques¬ tions Commissions of study were instituted which will have to report to a later Conference. The Con¬ ference also voted, however, a series of resolutions asking the Groups to address their Governments with a view to obtain from them the ratification of several im¬ portant international conventions which have not yet passed into the statute book of the Society of Nations, above all the Hague Convention as to a Prize Court and the Declaration of London on Naval Law. 14 LIST OF PUBLICATIONS Nos. 1-54, inclusive (April, 1907, to May, 1912). Including papers by Baron d’Estournelles de Constant, George Trumbull Ladd, Elihu Root, Barrett Wendell, Charles E. Jefferson, Seth Low, William James, Andrew Carnegie, Philander C. Knox, Pope Pius X, Heinrich Lammasch, Norman Angell, and others. A list of titles and authors will be sent on application. Special Bulletin: War Practically Preventable, and Arguments for Universal Peace, by Rev. Michael Clune, June, 1912. 55. The International Mind. Opening Address at the Lake Mo- honk Conference on International Arbitration, by Nicholas Murray Butler, June, 1912. 56. The Irrationality of War. On Science as an Element in the Developing of International Good Will and Understanding, by Sir Oliver Lodge, July, 1912. 57. The Interest of the Wage-earner in the Present Status of the Peace Movement; Address Delivered at the Lake Mohonk Confer¬ ence on International Arbitration, by Charles Patrick Neill, August, 1912. 58. The Relation of Social Theory to Public Policy, by Franklin H. Giddings, September, 1912. 59. The Double Standard in Regard to Fighting, by George M. Stratton, October, 1912. 60. As to Two Battleships. Contributions to the Debate upon the Naval Appropriation Bill in the Plouse of Representatives, November, 1912. 61. The Cosmopolitan Club Movement, by Louis P. Lochner, December, 1912. 62. The Spirit of Self-Government; Address Delivered at the 144th Anniversary Banquet of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, by Elihu Root, January, 1913. 63. The Time to Test Our Faith in Arbitration, by William Howard Taft, and Should the Panama Canal Tolls Controversy be Arbitrated? by Amos S. Hershey, February, 1913. Special Bulletin: Who Makes War? From the London Times, February, 1913. 64. Internationalism; A Selected List of Books, Pamphlets and Periodicals, by Frederick C. Hicks, March, 1913. 65. The Interparliamentary Union, by Christian L. Lange, April, 1913. Up to the limit of the editions printed, any one of the above will be sent postpaid upon receipt of a request addressed to the Secretary of the American Association for International Conciliation, Postoffice Sub-station 84, New York, N. Y. A small edition of a monthly bibliography of articles having to do with international matters is also published and distributed to libra¬ ries, magazines, and newspapers. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Nicholas Murray Butler Richard Bartholdt Lyman Abbott James Speyer Stephen Henry Olin Seth Low Robert A. Franks George Blumenthal Robert Bacon COUNCIL OF DIRECTION OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR Lyman Abbott, New York. Charles Francis Adams, Boston. Edwin A. Alderman, Charlottesville, Va. Robert Bacon, Cambridge, Mass. Richard Bartholdt, St. Louis, Mo. George Blumenthal, New York. Clifton R. Breckenridge, Fort Smith, Arkansas. William J. Bryan, Lincoln, Neb. T. E. Burton, Cleveland, Ohio. Nicholas Murray Butler, New York. Andrew Carnegie, New York. Edward Cary, New York. Joseph H. Choate, New York. Richard H. Dana, Boston, Mass. Arthur L. Dasher, Macon, Ga. Horace E. Deming, New York. Charles W. Eliot, Cambridge, Mass. John W. Foster, Washington, D. C. Robert A. Franks, Orange, N. J. Robert Garrett, Baltimore, Md. John Arthur Greene, New York. James M. Greenwood, Kansas City, Mo. Franklin H. Head, Chicago, III. William J. Holland, Pittsburgh, Pa. Hamilton Holt, New York. David Starr Jordan, Stanford University, Cal. J. H. Kirkland, Nashville, Tenn. Adolph Lewisohn, New York. Seth Low, New York. INTERNATIONAL CONCILIATION Clarence H. Mackay, New York. Theodore Marburg, Baltimore, Md. Brander Matthews, New York. Silas McBee, New York. George B. McClellan, Princeton, N. J. Andrew J. Montague, Richmond, Va. W. W. Morrow, San Francisco, Cal. Levi P. Morton, New York. Stephen H. Olin, New York. Henry S. Pritchett, New York. A. V. V. Raymond, Buffalo, N. Y. Ira Remsen, Baltimore, Md. James Ford Rhodes, Boston, Mass. Howard J. Rogers, Albany, N. Y. Elihu Root, Washington, D. C. J. G. Schurman, Ithaca, N. Y. James Brown Scott, Washington, D. C. Isaac N. Seligman, New York. F. J. V. Skiff, Chicago, III. William M. Sloane, New York. James Speyer, New York. Oscar S. Straus, New York. Mrs. Mary Wood Swift, Berkeley, Cal. George W. Taylor, Demopolis, Ala. O. H. Tittman, Washington, D. C. W. H. Tolman, New York. Charlemagne Tower, Philadelphia, Pa. Benjamin F- Trueblood, Washington, D. C. Edward Tuck, Paris, France. George E. Vincent, Minneapolis, Minn. William D. Wheelwright, Portland, Ore. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Nicholas Murray Butler Stephen Henry Olin Richard Bartholdi Seth Low Lyman Abbott Robert A. Franks James Speyer George Blumenthal Robert Bacon Secretary Frederick P. Keppel Assistant Secretary for the Southern States Dunbar Rowland CONCILIATION INTERNATIONALE 78 bis Avenue Henri Martin, Paris XVI®, France President Fondateur, Baron D'Estournelles de Constant Member Hague Court, Senator Honorary Presidents: Berthelot and Leon Bourgeois, Senators Secretaries General: A. Metin and Jules Rais Treasurer: Albert Kahn VERBAND FUR INTERNATIONALE VERSTANDIGUNG Presidents Geheimer Rat Professor Dr. Emanuel Ritter von Ullmann, Munich Professor Dr. Otfried Nippold, Professor Dr. Walther Schucking, Oberursel am Taunus Marburg a.L. Vice-Presidents Professor Dr. Robert Piloty, Bankdirektor Hermann Maier, Schatzmeister, Wurzburg. Frankfurt a.M.