Art. 10. The exchange of communications between the committees of the different nations shall be made provisionally through the medium of the Committee of Geneva.
Independently of the above resolutions, the Conference expressed the following wishes:
A. That the governments should grant protection to the national committees which may be formed, and should, as far as possible, facilitate the accomplishment of their task.
B. That, in time of war, neutrality should be proclaimed by the belligerent nations for the field and stationary hospitals, and that it may also be accorded, in the most complete manner, to all officials employed in sanitary work, to volunteer nurses, to the inhabitants of the country who shall assist the wounded, and to the wounded themselves.
That an incidental distinctive sign be adopted for the medical corps of all armies, or, at least, for all persons attached to this service in the same army.
That an identical flag be also adopted for the field and stationary hospitals of all armies.
The innovation which is most striking, in reading these documents, is the pre-existence of the committees for war, and their creation and maintenance in times of peace.
If those societies which have hitherto labored had only conformed to this arrangement, they would have been spared much trouble, and would have been able to give to their resources a more judicious direction. If each of them had been enlightened by the experience of its predecessors; if each had known before hand that which it would have to do in such and such an emergency; if it had anticipated obstacles in order to remove them; and if it had been provided with money and material, it would have been able to render much greater services, and would not, to the same extent, have been a victim either to its inexperience or to its precipitation. The preliminary study of ways and means would have left traces of something more systematic and would have prevented much waste and many false calculations. Voluntary action will be so much more efficacious when it shall have preorganized. At a meeting of the different German relief committees held at Berlin, on the tenth of July, 1864, Baron Tinti, of Vienna, strongly insisted on this truth, and the Committee of Schwerin did the same in its report of 1865. When our generosity shall be less ignorant, it will know where and in what way it can be useful; we shall economize our means; we shall multiply our gifts by the good employment that we shall make of them, and by the direction that will be given to the public desire. Bis dat, qui cito dat. He who gives opportunely gives twice.
