Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/449

Rh and weak-minded dreamers; which not many years ago belittled international arbitration as a feeble contrivance applicable only to petty bickerings about trifles, but not to really dangerous disputes among nations; which scoffed at the idea of a permanent international peace tribunal as a “barren ideality,” because it would have no power behind it to enforce its decisions or awards; and which incessantly conjures up imaginary dangers to our safety, to prove the necessity of constant preparation for war, and of keeping up, to this end, vast and costly armaments even in time of peace!

How does this pessimism stand in the light of day? It is true, war has not yet been abolished. But who will deny that the number of wars has grown less from century to century, and that many and many troubles, which at earlier periods would surely have led to war, have been peaceably composed? Who will deny that the abhor rence of war as the cruel scourge of mankind and as an odious relic of barbarism is growing more universal in civilized society every day, and that the terrible conflict now going on in the Far East has immensely intensified that abhorrence and bids fair to serve as a tremendous warning example for all time?

And now behold international arbitration, not many decades ago rarely resorted to as a doubtful experiment, become practically the “fashion” of the time, as an English statesman recently expressed it.

Behold the Hague Court of Peace, suddenly risen into practical activity as by enchantment, and turning the ridicule upon those superwise pessimists who but yesterday, as it were, pronounced such a permanent international tribunal an impossibility dreamed of only by fantastic visionaries!

Behold the prompt reference to that tribunal of such a case as the bloody attack by Russian war-ships upon