Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 5.djvu/280

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS

reservedly to associate themselves. It is their hope that your deliberations will do much to promote a closer understanding between the na- tions.

You have indeed done much since the new century began to give shape and substance to tile growing, the insistent desire that war may be banished from the earth. All of us, I sup- pose, can remember a time when such a gathering as this would have evoked the derision of those who call themselves practical men. You would have been called dreamers, and your plans for substituting equitable arrangement for the license and ferocity of war would have been denounced as dangerous quixotry. Gentlemen, let us be charitable in our judgment of those misguided men and those dark ages. We are all creatures of habit. And by habituating the world to the idea that peaceful arbitrament can adjust such differences as diplomacy has failed to solve, you have opened men's eyes; you have cleared their minds.

Gentlemen, it must be a cause of delight and encouragement to you to feel that a great step has been taken toward the realization of an ideal. I believe that there are now in existence at present thirty-eight arbitration agreements between the different Powers. These instruments have all been framed since October, 1903. Thanks to Lord Lansdowne, Great Britain has entered into agreements with ten Powers, by virtue of which all legal questions arising be- 240

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