XIII. INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION.
During the Peace Conference in New York in 1908 I was on the programme with Mr. William T. Stead of London, the editor of the English Review of Reviews, who was very much interested in the volume on the Thirteenth Century, and who suggested that one chapter in the book should have been devoted to the consideration of what was accomplished for peace and for International Arbitration during this century. There is no doubt that there developed, as the result of many Papal decrees, a greater tendency than has existed ever before or since, to refer quarrels between nations that would ordinarily end in war to decision by some selected umpire. Usually the Pope, as the head of the Christian Church, to which all the nations of the civilized world belonged, was selected as the arbitrator. This international arbitration, strengthened by the decrees of Pope Innocent III., Pope Honorius III. and Pope Alexander III., developed in a way that is well worth while studying, and that has deservedly been the subject of careful investigation since the present [{447}] peace movement began. Certainly the outlook for the securing of peace by international arbitration was better at this time than it has been at any time since. What a striking example, for instance, is the choice of King Louis of France as the umpire in the dispute between the Barons and the King of England, which might have led to war. Louis' position with regard to the Empire and the Papacy was to a great extent that of a pacificator, and his influence for peace was felt everywhere throughout Europe. The spirit of the century was all for arbitration and the adjudication of intranational as well as international difficulties by peaceful means.