As things are to-day, fresh military loans are demanded in every parliament, and we are lashed by the press until we give our consent.[[9]] It would be otherwise if we could reply: “The dangers against which the armaments demanded are to protect us would be obviated by the tribunal which we desire.” Therefore a project ought to be elaborated which we might lay before the governments.
Here Stanhope developed a few points which were to be established as the basis of the organization, and he concluded with these words:
If next year we approach the governments with such a plan, and if our action were in unison, the future would give us the victory; at all events, the moral victory would be assured to us in having done our whole duty.
Then came a debate. The German deputy, Dr. Hirsch,—from the beginning the Germans have performed the function of the brake in the Peace Conferences,—speaks against Stanhope’s proposition, nevertheless recognizing the noble ideas so eloquently presented:
It is essential that the members of the Conference should pass only such resolutions as are comprehensible and practicable, and as may be presented to the parliaments with some probability of their being accepted; now Herr von Caprivi would certainly never take into consideration the project of an international tribunal. We ought to avoid also inviting the curse of absurdity through plans of that kind; for opponents are only too much inclined to ridicule the members of the Conference as dreamers.
Houzeau de Lehaye springs from his seat like a jack-in-the-box:
In view of such great ideas [he shouts] as those that have just been developed, in view of the establishment of a cause by such men as Stanhope and Gladstone, the word “absurd” should never be uttered again! [Applause.] I second the motion.
Now the revered Passy arises:
I should like to enter my protest against a second word which my honored friend, Dr. Hirsch, has used,—the word “never.” No great advancement, no innovation, has ever been carried through, but that the prediction has been made at the beginning that it could never be done. For example, that parliamentarians from all nations should meet to discuss the peace of the world, that they should do this in the assembly hall of the Upper House of a monarchical state,—if the question had been propounded five years ago, When will all this happen? who would not have answered, “Never!”
And, in fact,—Passy accidentally hit upon the very figure,—five years later, on the 29th of July, 1899, the International Tribunal was established in the very city where the plan for such a tribunal, proposed by Gladstone, was laid on the table. Dr. Hirsch’s “never” did not last very long! To be sure, this tribunal does not as yet possess a mandatory character; the protesters who were active in objecting to the establishment of the tribunal at all saw to it that it should not have this character. And all who cling to the institution of war are also persuaded that this shall never be.