All the great Powers of Europe and America, together with the secondary states, at once heartily concurred with the proposition of the Czar of Russia. Unfortunately, there were two sad exceptions to the consent to consider the salutary purpose so anxiously desired by those who valued as they should all the benefits the world would have derived from an international system assuring permanent peace. Germany and Austria, the latter already for years dominated by the former, opposed the patriotic move of the Emperor of Russia, suggested to him by Great Britain. They agreed to be represented at the Conferences for the only object of thwarting the efforts in favour of a satisfactory enactment of new rules of International Law to henceforth protect the world against a general conflagration, and to free the nations from the crushing burdens of a militarism daily developing more extravagant.
Ministerial changes in Great Britain in no way altered this part of the foreign policy of the Mother Country. In 1905, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman became Prime Minister of England. He was well known to be an ardent pacifist. Deprecating the mad increase of unchecked militarism, he said, in his ministerial program:—
"A policy of huge armaments keeps alive and stimulates and feeds the belief that force is the best, if not the only, solution of international differences."
On the 8th of March, 1906, Lord Haldane, then Minister of War, declared in the British House of Commons:—
"I wish we were near the time when the nations would consider together the reduction of armaments.... Only by united action can we get rid of the burden which is pressing so heavily on all civilized nations."
The second Conference of The Hague which took place in July and October, 1907, was then being organized. Russia was again its official promoter. Well aware of the uncompromising stand of Germany on the question of reduced armaments, she had not included that matter in the program she had decided to lay before the Conference. The British Government did all they could to have it placed on the orders to be taken into consideration. A member of the Labor Party, Mr. Vivian, moved in the House of Commons, that the Conference of The Hague be called upon to discuss that most important subject. His motion was unanimously and enthusiastically carried.
Informing the House that the Cabinet heartily approved the Resolution, Sir Edward Grey, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, said:—
"I do not believe that at any time has the conscious public opinion in the various countries of Europe set more strongly in the direction of peace than at the present time, and yet the burden of military and naval expenditure goes on increasing. No greater service could it (the Hague Conference) do, than to make the conditions of peace less expensive than they are at the present time.... It is said we are waiting upon foreign nations in order to reduce our expenditure. As a matter of fact, we are all waiting on each other. Some day or other somebody must take the first step.... I do, on behalf of the Government, not only accept, but welcome such a resolution as this as a wholesome and beneficial expression of opinion."
In July, 1906, a most important meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union took place in London. Twenty-three countries, enjoying the privileges, in various proportions, of free institutions, were represented at this memorable Congress of Nations. In the course of his remarkable opening speech of the first sitting, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, Prime Minister, said:—
"Urge your Governments, in the name of humanity, to go into The Hague Conference as we ourselves hope to go, pledged to diminished charges in respect of armaments."