Movements of the kind have culminated in the action of a body rejoicing in the somewhat cumbrous title of the "International Central Organisation for a Durable Peace," which is inviting members of about fifty societies, of very varying degrees of competence, to a cosmopolitan meeting, to be held at Berne in December next. Lest the unwary should be beguiled into having anything to do with the plausible offer made to them that they should, there and then, assist in compiling "a scientific dossier, containing material that will be of vast importance to the diplomats who may be chosen to participate in the peace congress itself," it may be worth while to call attention to the composition of the executive committee by which the invitations are issued, and to its "minimum programme."
Of the members of this committee (of thirteen), on which Great Britain is represented only by Mr. Lowes Dickenson (mistakenly described as a Cambridge Professor), and America only by Mrs. Andrews, of Boston, the best known are Professors Lammasch, of Vienna, and Schücking, of Marburg. The "minimum programme" demands, inter alia, "equal rights for all nations in the colonies, &c.," of the Powers; submission of all disputes to "pacific procedure," joint action by the Powers against any one of them resorting to military measures, rather than to such procedure; and that "the right of prize shall be abolished, and the freedom of the seas shall be guaranteed." The provenance of this "minimum programme" is sufficiently obvious. What is likely to be the character of such a "maximum programme" as will doubtless be aimed at by the proposed gathering?
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND
Oxford, October 16 (1915).
CHAPTER VII
THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF NEUTRALS
SECTION 1
The Criterion of Neutral Conduct