June 22.
Up at four o'clock and at ten attended a session of the first section at the "House in the Wood." Very interesting were the discussions regarding bullets and asphyxiating bombs. As to the former, Sir John Ardagh of the British delegation repelled earnestly the charges made regarding the British bullets used in India, and offered to substitute for the original proposal one which certainly would be much more effective in preventing unnecessary suffering and death; but the Russians seemed glad to score a point against Great Britain, and Sir John's proposal was voted down, its only support being derived from our own delegation. Captain Crozier, our military delegate, took an active part in supporting Sir John Ardagh, but the majority against us was overwhelming.
As to asphyxiating bombs, Captain Mahan spoke at length against the provision to forbid them: his ground being that not the slightest thing had yet been done looking to such an invention; that, even if there had been, their use would not be so bad as the use of torpedoes against ships of war; that asphyxiating men by means of deleterious gases was no worse than asphyxiating them with water; indeed, that the former was the less dangerous of the two, since the gases used might simply incapacitate men for a short time, while the blowing up of a ship of war means death to all or nearly all of those upon it.
To this it was answered—and, as it seemed to me, with force—that asphyxiating bombs might be used against towns for the destruction of vast numbers of non-combatants, including women and children, while torpedoes at sea are used only against the military and naval forces of the enemy. The original proposal was carried by a unanimous vote, save ours. I am not satisfied with our attitude on this question; but what can a layman do when he has against him the foremost contemporary military and naval experts? My hope is that the United States will yet stand with the majority on the record.
I stated afterward in a bantering way to Captain Mahan, as well as others, that while I could not support any of the arguments that had been made in favor of allowing asphyxiating bombs, there was one which somewhat appealed to me—namely, that the dread of them might do something to prevent the rush of the rural population to the cities, and the aggregation of the poorer classes in them, which is one of the most threatening things to modern society, and also a second argument that such bombs would bring home to warlike stay-at-home orators and writers the realities of war.
At noon received the French translation of our memorial to De Staal, but found it very imperfect throughout, and in some parts absolutely inadmissible; so I worked with Baron de Bildt, president of the Swedish delegation here, all the afternoon in revising it.
At six the American delegation met and chose me for their orator at the approaching Grotius festival at Delft. I naturally feel proud to discharge a duty of this kind, and can put my heart into it, for Grotius has long been to me almost an object of idolatry, and his main works a subject of earnest study. There are few men in history whom I so deeply venerate. Twenty years ago, when minister at Berlin, I sent an eminent American artist to Holland and secured admirable copies of the two best portraits of the great man. One of these now hangs in the Law Library of Cornell University, and the other over my work-table at the Berlin Embassy.
June 23.
At work all the morning on letters and revising final draft of memorial on immunity of private property at sea, and lunched afterward at the "House in the Wood" to talk it over with Baron de Bildt.
At the same table met M. de Martens, who has just returned by night to his work here, after presiding a day or two over the Venezuela arbitration tribunal at Paris. He told me that Sir Richard Webster, in opening the case, is to speak for sixteen days, and De Martens added that he himself had read our entire Venezuelan report, as well as the other documents on the subject which form quite a large library. And yet we do not include men like him in "the working-classes"!