Not so very long ago there were princes and noblemen who fought one another and exercised jurisdiction over their subjects and serfs. If any one at that day had told them that the time would come when they would be required to bring their quarrels before a judge, they would have declared that person a dreamer, a Utopian, or something worse. And now these great lords are compelled to appear before the judge, where all their former serfs stand on the same footing with them.
This change might be brought about also in the relations of the powers, and all the easier since it does not here concern two or three hundred princes and thousands of members of the high and lower nobility. We have to-day six great powers; and even these have united,—some in the Triple Alliance, the others in a friendly union; and all for the purpose of preserving peace.
Now then, only one further step is required. If these two groups unite, then the smaller states will join, and the free confederation of the European powers is accomplished.
After the session the participants in the Congress are conducted to the Millennial Exposition,—the “Historical Exposition,” ... a thousand years of Hungarian history, from the primitive simplicity of the semibarbarous time of Arpád down to the refined industry of the highly developed—let us say only quarter-barbarous—to-day. And if another thousand years pass by and again an exposition illustrates the course of development, will the little medals with the word pax on them, such as we all have attached to our clothes as tokens, at that time be found perchance among the articles of apparel?
In the evening a garden party in Oes-Budavar. Everywhere at the appearance of the troops of peace ring forth from the densely encircling public hearty shouts of Éljen!
September 18. An interesting session. Élie Ducommun reads the report about the events of the past year. In the first place the progress of arbitration and the other successes and labors of the League; then a survey of the military events in Egypt, Abyssinia, Cuba, and Madagascar; finally, the latest events in Turkey. “Whoever may have been the originators of the atrocities, every civilized man must condemn them, just as he must condemn those who permitted the atrocities.”[[10]]
James Capper, the sympathetic Englishman with the white, apostolic head, with the hearty, ringing voice, gets the floor. “The report of the Central Bureau,” he says, “shows so clearly the absurdity of the so-called armed peace.... What! The many armies, the terrible engines of destruction, are for the purpose of furnishing and maintaining peace, are they? and yet six million soldiers have not sufficed to prevent the infamies that have been taking place in the Orient! We should not look idly on while brigands trample down a whole nation! If I see in the street a child attacked by villains, I consider it my duty to interfere with both fists in defense of the one attacked, and if in the struggle I should have to lose my life, I would do it willingly!” Loud applause. We all feel it would be a legitimate use of force to protect the persecuted against force.
A young French priest, Abbé Pichot, moves that the Congress send an address to the Pope, begging him to grant the movement his support: it is known to him that Leo XIII had the peace cause much at heart, and that a word of approval from that quarter would be of the highest value. I spring to my feet and second the motion. I also know for a fact that the Pope has frequently of late years spoken against preparations for war and in favor of the international arbitration tribunal; but it is not sufficiently well known, because these utterances were made to a Russian publicist and an editor of the Daily Chronicle. The Catholic press and the Church generally, as well as the whole Catholic world, have failed to hear those words. How very different would be the effect if the Pope should direct these observations of his directly to the millions of his faithful. So then, I urged, let the respectful request be submitted to him that he embody in an encyclical the expressions of encouragement already often pronounced by him in the presence of the advocates of peace. Some one objects: the motion could not fail to offend those of other beliefs, especially freethinkers; no religious tendency should be introduced. Frédéric Passy explains that we are dealing not with religious but with humanitarian demonstrations. The motion is carried.
In the evening, gala performance of the opera Der Geiger von Cremona.[[11]]
I receive a letter from Dr. Julius Ofner, deputy to the Austrian Parliament. I give the text of it here: