The Limits of Hospitality.
Another important subject which is likely to attract the attention of the conference is the question of the privileges and the limits of hospitality, of temporary anchorage and asylum, and of the supply and repair of belligerent war-ships in neutral ports.
It is understood that the subject which has been suggested for the consideration of the conference is the question of opening hostilities without previous declaration of war. It is extremely doubtful whether the conference will attempt to formulate any rule on so difficult a subject, and one so intimately connected with the necessities of strategy.
There will be little objection, I imagine, to the view that no government ought to use force to compel another government to pay its public securities, its bonds, or other national obligations which foreigners have voluntarily purchased or subscribed to and taken.
But it is nearly certain that there will be a division of opinion on the question whether any inflexible rule should be laid down with respect to cases of individual foreigners who have invested large sums of money in the development of the natural resources of a country, under contract with its government to do so, if the latter should then flagrantly violate the contract and despoil them of the fruits of their enterprises.
The experience had with the practical workings of The Hague Tribunal suggests the desirability of certain amendments of the convention of July 29, 1899, such as that only disinterested arbitrators shall be eligible to seats on the tribunal; that the arbitration of questions of a judicial nature and of those concerning the interpretation and execution of treaties shall be compulsory; that the medieval idea that a sense of national honor, aside from the rights of self-defense, can justify resort to war in any case shall be abandoned, and, workable and in every way admirable as it now is—when we consider its substance and the circumstances of its formation—that the time is now ripe for the revision and recasting of the convention of July 29, 1899.
Whether an international parliament can prevent war without the assistance of an international police is another story.