These rules governing the conduct of war, represent one of the tendencies of our time, to minimize the evils of war by making its processes more humane and its rules more exact and uniform. The United States proposal to exempt all innocent private property at sea from capture, was in line with this tendency, but could only secure reference to a subsequent conference. The Arbitration

Treaty represents the ideal of that other, more numerous wing of the humanitarians who have paid their attention to war, which desires not so much to soften the rigors of war as to provide a substitute for it.

All the world knows what was done at the Hague, in this matter of arbitration, but the real significance of the action may be easily exaggerated and misundertood. There is no compulsory reference of even a limited class of questions: there is no real change in the present system of arbitrating cases specially agreed upon. The feature added at the Hague is that of machinery to make the present system simpler, easier, more effective. With this were wrapped up a quantity of international processes, some old, some new, which may or more probably may not, prove efficacious.

Such were the resort to mediation, the offer of mediation, mediation through seconds and commissions of inquiry. Whether this arbitration convention is likely to prove a substitute for war or merely a substitute for diplomacy, is a question which Mr. Holls argues rather warmly, but into which we need not enter here. That the arbitration agreement is of the highest value in the progress of nations, as well as in the history of Internation Law, may be well argued on two grounds at least. It lays down a presumption of the peaceful settlement of disputes between nations; and the decisions of the judges appointed under it are likely in time to furnish a body of law which will be capable of codification.

But little has been said of the character and quality of Mr. Holls' history of the Hague Conference, losing sight of his workmanship somewhat in the extraordinary interest of the proceedings which he describes. Probably he would ask for no higher praise. The appendix contains the French text of the Conventions with an English translation, the Declarations adopted by the Conference, an account of the Grotius celebration in which Mr. White so admirably participated, and reports of the United States Commission as a whole and of its members individually, treating of the work of their committees. The spirit which pervades the whole book, of hopefulness and of enthusiasm, is so full of generous feeling that one is carried away by it. It was the spirit of the Conference

itself. "At the beginning of the Conference," writes the author, "the members themselves were affected by the prevalent scepticism, suspicion and discouragement. It was, however, most interesting to observe how from week to week and almost from day to day, this feeling gave way to a spirit of hope, of mutual confidence and of pride at participating in what was at once a great consummation and an auspicious beginning."

Turn now to Professor de Lapradelle's book for the other point of view, the critical, not the hopeful one. To him the delegates seemed bound by the ties of national interest, yet also constrained by the obligation of courtesy to the Czar, the patron of the ConferThus they must seem to do something while really doing little. What they did accomplish surprised him.

ence.

He emphasizes the efforts made to carry some plan of disarmament and their failure. Thus disarmament was pared down to an agreement not to increase armament and effectives, military and naval, for a short period. The objections to this were partly individual, partly of a general character. Individual, as in the case of Sweden, whose military system, two hundred years old, could not afford even five years delay in revision. General, for instance the denial that the number of effectives is a fair test of the military strength of a country, since the degree of public training, the shape and situation of the country, the number of fortified places, all have their bearing upon the question. Besides these two classes of objections, distrust of the Russ pervaded all.

The final result of this particular movement was the vote that "the limitation of military expenditure, which weighs heavily on the world, is highly desirable for the increase in the material and moral well being of humanity." A sentiment which M. de Lapradelle characterizes fairly enough as a "polite formula for the Czar, a species of vague and platonic condolence."

The Russian delegates skilfully turned the attention of the committee away from this failure to another set of topics, those relating to the humanization of war. Where these had practical value, says the author, they were doomed to failure. Only the sterile rules could be passed. Thus balloons never had been used for the discharge of explosives, they were not capable of direction, therefore for five years at least they could safely be prohibited. So with the asphyxiating gas question. Since it was improbable that projectiles filled with such substance would be invented and used, all the delegates but two agreed to forbid them. The dumdum discussion aroused the antagonism of the British delegates, was carried

in spite of strenuous opposition, and was valueless in the author's opinion, since both Great Britain and the United States failed to subscribe to the rule.

The taking up of the laws of war for discussion at the Hague, is considered by Prof. de Lapradelle a diplomatic device of Russia to save face in view of the possible failure of disarmament and arbitration. Into the discussion of the extension of the Geneva rules to naval war and of the rules of land warfare, he goes at great length, finding much to criticize in detail, and little to be thankful for. This seems ungracious. There are omissions in the code, there are perhaps, blemishes in it. But in the main it is good, and the mere fact that any code has been adopted is of immense value. This our author totally loses sight of.

And yet he can see into a millstone farther than most men and in the Mediation-Arbitration discussion is at his keenest. It was a mass of intrigue where two groups of states were ever struggling, the one desirous of using the mediation machinery to secure influence and create a rôle, the other fearful of this danger. Amongst the former stands the United States, in the author's mind, aiming at control of its continent, none of the other American republics but Mexico having a representation at the Hague out of deference, thus giving it a free hand. With the latter he classes Germany, who "confiante dans la puissance de ses armes, imbue des ideès les plus absolues," for independent reasons, distrusted a system which tended to make states equal before the law.

Selfish reasons, not the promptings of humanity, thus dictated this convention like the others. And so unlike most critics who see in mediation too little, Prof. de Lapradelle sees in it too much, the mandate of intervention, in spite of the disclaimer in its terms.

The commissions of inquiry are similarly suspicious. The small states, according to our author, saw in them only "un moyen pour les grand États de s'immiscer dans leurs affaires et de leur imposer leurs volontés."

The final topic relates to arbitration. Here again is found a paring down of the ideal. General compulsory arbitration, says the author, seemed to the delegates a dream not yet to be realized. The compulsory reference of limited classes of cases even was unacceptable, for whatever the classification, national susceptibilities were involved and aroused. There remained the plan of a permanent court to hear cases purely at the option of the litigants. The scheme. worked out, is not to the author's liking. He would have preferred

one judge from each state, instead of four, but thinks such a court would have had too much authority and independence to suit its creators. Moreover, he cannot conceive how litigant powers can agree in picking a panel of judges out of this big list. It is an imperfect and sterile system.

So too, with the arbitral procedure, which if properly arranged, would have had real value. And the failure to permit the adherence of non-represented states, was the greatest shame of all. The United States had kept out the other American states, for sake of control. England had kept out the Transvaal for fear of having to arbitrate. Italy had kept out the Pope, not recognizing his temporal sovereignty. Should these be permitted to accede! Alas! the conference could not agree, and the question was reserved for future action. Everything was sacrificed to the desire for an "entente" and this is one more peg on which our by this time somewhat embittered and hopeless author hangs his diatribes.

And so we shut his volume with a sigh of relief, and close our minds to over ingenious fault finding, and turn our eyes away to the far horizon, where the shadowy images of law and justice and morality, international, are dimly visible amid the clouds.

Yale University.

T. S. WOOLSEY.

A Dividend to Labor-a study of Employers' Welfare Institutions. By Nicholas Paine Gilman. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1899. Crown 8vo, $1.75.

After an interval of ten years since the publication of his first important contribution to the subject under the title "Profit Sharing," Mr. Nicholas Paine Gilman continues his services to capital and labor in a volume entitled "A Dividend to Labor." The somewhat ambiguous sub-title calls it "A Study of Employers Welfare Institutions." It appears upon examination to be in fact a full and fairly accurate study of the institutions, both direct and indirect, set up by employers for the welfare of their work-people. It is not, however, a revelation of the methods by which employers have, in some instances, sought to promote their own welfare. Doubtless a very interesting book might be written upon this side of the question.

Mr. Gilman tells us in his preface, that his practical aim has been to present the facts relating to indirect dividends to labor, in "a necessarily incomplete view of welfare institutions in Europe and

America in such a way as to incite other intelligent and successful employers of labor to go and do likewise." His main motive in writing is stated thus: "I trust that this book may serve to increase the deeper consciousness of kind, that more truly human sympathy between employers and employed, of which such a dividend (to labor) can be but an imperfect expression."

Part I of the present volume sets forth in general terms the scope and duties of the modern employer, further exemplified by a graphic sketch of the early and successful portion of Robert Owen's remarkable career. As the admission is freely made that Mr. Owen's later experiments were too idealistic and for this and other reasons proved sadly disappointing, one is led to wonder why a better example was not chosen-one which, at least, did not end in disaster. The brilliancy of Owen's rapid rise to fame and his wide sphere of influence were due to an intimate knowledge of and a complete devotion to the then novel problems of factory life. Whether the idealism, which afterwards developed into socialism and wrecked his fortunes, should not be credited with his early success, or some part of it, is perhaps open to question. It would certainly have been desirable to choose as an instance of the success of the profit-sharing idea an example wholly free from the socialistic spirit so often and prominently connected with the name of Robert Owen. However, one thing certainly Owen stood for, repeatedly emphasized by our present author; he believed in personal contact with the people he employed, as absolutely essential in bringing about the objects he had in view. As Mr. Gilman well puts it "Welfare institutions are good, I repeat, but the individual workingman is not himself an institution, and he is not satisfied to be treated abstractly, as if he were a formula." In other words, Mr. Owen recognized that workingmen were human beings like himself and must be credited with the qualities and attributes which he himself possessed. So far certainly Owen furnishes an excellent example and our author discreetly pursues the subject no further.

In Part II is presented a "body of sifted facts for the information of all persons interested in the study of labor questions." A reading of this will surprise the employer unfamiliar with the subject in many ways. It will probably seem incomprehensible to Americans that work-people should be found willing to enter into the conditions of many of the welfare institutions so fully described, especially those in Germany and France and other continental countries, and even to glory in conditions which would probably be considered objectionable in this country. Indeed, it is hard to imagine