On the next day—to return to 1899—came the formal opening in the Storthing. At the earlier Conferences scarcely more than sixty or eighty persons were present; this time there are more than three hundred. Germany, which hitherto has been represented by not more than two or three, sends forty to Christiania; France sends twenty-six, Austria fourteen. If this continues, special halls will have to be built for the “Interparliament”!
I noted the final sentence from Minister of State Steen’s opening speech: “And so we shall be victorious—which will be a blessing to the defeated.” That gives the criterion for what all noble champions of the future are to attain.
President Ullman makes a report on the Nobel foundation. The first distribution is to take place on the tenth of December, 1901. The interest accruing up to that time is to be employed as a capital fund for the creation of a Nobel Institute in Christiania, that is, a central school for the study and development of international law. From the annual income of the bequest (200,000 Swedish kroner) 50,000 kroner are to be reserved for the support of the Institute.
For the first time the United States of America is represented at an Interparliamentary Conference. Mr. Barrows reports that in his country there are many people who have never seen an officer and many officers who have never seen their regiment assembled. He believes that he is warranted—especially in view of the instructions and proposals intrusted to the delegates to the Hague Conference—in declaring that the jingo spirit, which was aroused by the last war with Spain, and which is in such absolute opposition to the fundamental principles of the land of the star-spangled banner, will never get the upper hand.
So this was the first time that an American representative appeared in the arena of the Interparliamentary Union; but of late the New World is taking the first place in the universal peace movement. From that direction will come for the Old World the impulse, the example,—perhaps the necessity,—for the creation of United Europe.
Mr. Barrows was followed by Count Albert Apponyi. He informed the meeting that Koloman von Szell, the former leader of the Hungarian Interparliamentary group, had now become prime minister. Fiery, eloquent as always, flowed Apponyi’s speech, and when he had finished, Björnson went up to him and pressed his hand.
In the evening a garden party at Minister of State Steen’s. Here I met Ibsen. Long ago I had written him to get his views in regard to the peace cause. He then replied that his life was wholly devoted to the dramatic art and he had no views at all on the question at issue. I now wanted to ask if his presence was a sign of an awakened interest in the movement, but some one came between us and I had no other chance to resume the interrupted conversation.
The next afternoon we made the acquaintance of all the members of the French group present. M. Catusse, the recently accredited ambassador of France at Stockholm, whom we had met before both at Nice and at The Hague, had invited all his French colleagues to take tea with him, and my husband and I were also asked. We found more than a dozen members of the Chamber and the Senate, among them the former premier, Cochery.
We spoke of Léon Bourgeois. He had left The Hague for Paris on account of the last cabinet crisis, and there he had informed several of the gentlemen that he should be unwilling to undertake the formation of a new cabinet, because he considered the work that he had to complete at The Hague more important.
Senator Labiche told us that the day before, when he was introduced to Björnson, the poet asked him point blank, Êtes-vous Dreyfusard?—for Björnson himself is.