Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/325

 1899.] Bussia. — The Peace Conference. [317

possessing the character set forth in the preceding paragraph, and declaring that the demand is admissible on that ground.

No demand for revision can be accepted three months after the notification of the decision.

A second convention dealt with the laws and customs of war on land ; and a third with the adaptation to naval warfare of the principles of the Geneva Convention of August 22, 1864. Next followed three declarations prohibiting " the throwing of projectiles or explosives from balloons or by other new analogous means for a period of five years " ; " the making use of projectiles whose sole object is to diffuse asphyxiating or deleterious gases " ; and " the making use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, as, for instance, bullets with a hard case which case does not cover the whole of the enclosed mass, or contains incisions.' ' After these declarations came the follow- ing series of " wishes," dealing mainly with the suggestions in the original Eussian programme, which it was found impossible to embody in definite conventions : —

I. The conference considers that the limitation of the mili- tary charges at the present time weighing upon the world is greatly to be desired for the increase of the material and moral welfare of humanity.

II. The conference expresses the wish that the question of the rights and duties of neutrals should be inscribed on the programme of a conference to be held at an early date.

III. The conference expresses the opinion that questions relative to the type and the calibre of rifles and naval artillery such as have been examined by it should be the subject of study by the different Governments with a view to arriving eventually at a uniform solution by means of a further conference.

IV. The conference, taking into consideration the prelimi- nary steps taken by the Swiss Federal Government for the revision of the Geneva Convention, expresses the wish that a special conference be shortly convened for the purpose of revis- ing this convention.

V. The conference has resolved unanimously, with the exception of a few abstentions, that the following questions should be reserved for examination by future conferences : (1) A proposal tending to declare the inviolability of private pro- perty in war at sea ; (2) a proposal regulating the question of the bombardment of ports, towns and villages by a naval force.

By the final protocol of the conference the conventions were to be signed by December 31, 1899, and they were so signed by the representatives of all the great Powers that took part in the conference.

The foreign policy of Bussia in other respects continued to make satisfactory progress. The new Chinese colony of Ta- lien-wan rapidly developed itself, notwithstanding a conflict in February with the Chinese there in which about a hundred of them were killed, and a town named Dalmy was built at Port