Early on July 29 the conventions were signed in the “House in the Wood,” and the formal concluding session took place in the afternoon. The last word—it was uttered by D’Estournelles—was:
“May our Conference be a beginning, not a conclusion. May our countries, by inaugurating new assemblages such as this has been, continue to serve the cause of civilization and of peace!”
LXI
AFTER THE HAGUE CONFERENCE
Journey to Norway to the ninth Interparliamentary Conference · The woman’s movement in the North · Military honors shown the friends of peace · Evening before the Conference · Björnstjerne Björnson · Opening in the Storthing · A mot by Minister Steen · Report on the Nobel foundation · Garden party at Steen’s · Henrik Ibsen · At M. Catusse’s · Excursion to Frognersättern · Last session · Message from The Hague · Final banquet · Björnson as a speaker · My interview with him · Harmannsdorf again · Aunt Büschel’s death · Margarete Suttner’s betrothal · Letter from Count Apponyi · What then constituted my life · A physician’s prescription · Controversy between the jingoes and pacifists in England · End of the Dreyfus affair · Germany’s naval plan · The South African war breaks out · Letter from Count Nigra
As soon as we returned to Harmannsdorf I set to work revising my diary from which have been taken, for this autobiography, most of the passages referring to the Conference. I sent the book to the publisher, and it appeared in 1900, but I cannot report any great awakening of interest thereby. The contemporary world is either indifferent or unfriendly in its attitude toward the Hague Conference.
We remained at home only a short time. After about three weeks we started forth again, this time for Norway. Invitations from the management of the Interparliamentary Conference which was to meet there from the first to the sixth of August had come to us, as well as to Herr von Bloch, requesting us to attend the deliberations and festivities as guests of honor. We did not require a second invitation. A journey to the Northland, what a holiday!
Again a wholly new part of the world opening before us. We reached Christiania on the evening of July 30. On the thirty-first the ship placed at the disposal of the interparliamentarians was to arrive. This ship was met by another, on which were the managers of the Conference as well as such of the deputies as had preferred to come by rail. John Lund invited us to accompany him on the trip.
There were many other guests besides us on board. We met many old friends and acquaintances, including Ullman (the president of the Storthing), Von Bar of the University of Göttingen, Marcoartu, Baron Pirquet, and others. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, the blue sky was cloudless, the fiord lay bathed in the brightest sunshine, and a cool breeze stirred the air. A military orchestra was on board, and to the strains of the Norwegian national hymn our steamer moved away. Streamers of the various colors of the fourteen countries represented at the Conference waved from the masts.
We made many new acquaintances. The wife of Blehr, afterwards minister but at that time ambassador in Stockholm, told me about the progress of the woman’s movement already started in Norway; she said that they were not far from the attainment of suffrage. Every one, from the wives of statesmen down to the peasant women, was taking an active part in political life.
I asked if it were true that Sweden and Norway were living like quarrelsome brethren.