World Affairs Institute

News from the FieldSource: The Advocate of Peace (1894-1920), Vol. 71, No. 11 (DECEMBER, 1909), pp. 250-251Published by: World Affairs InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20665837 .

Accessed: 14/05/2014 08:11

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

World Affairs Institute and Heldref Publications are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to The Advocate of Peace (1894-1920).

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.103 on Wed, 14 May 2014 08:11:48 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

250 THE ADVOCATE OF PEACE. December, many articles appeared in the American sensational

papers revealing profound ignorance of Japan and cre

ating anti-Japanese sentiment. In spite of this irritation, the press and the people of Japan, as a whole, maintained a high degree of self-control. Nevertheless, they were often reported as giving vent to belligerent utterances and making belligerent plans. Trivial incidents were often seized on and exaggerated.

"In this day of extensive and increasing commingling of races and civilizations, one of the prime problems is the

maintenance of amicable international relations. Essen

tial to this are not only just and honest dealings between

governments, but also, so far as practicable, the preven

tion as well as the removal of race jealousy and misunder

standing between the peoples themselves. Indispensable for this purpose is trustworthy international news. False or even exaggerated reports of the customs, beliefs or actions of other nations are fruitful causes of contempt, ill-will, animosity and even war. If libel on an individual is a grave offense, how much more grave is libel on a nation !

" Therefore, we American missionaries residing in

Japan would respectfully call the attention of lovers of international peace and goodwill to the above-mentioned facts and considerations, and would urge the importance of receiving with great caution any alleged news from

Japan of an inflammatory or belligerent nature, and of

seeking to educate public opinion in the United States, so that, in regard to foreign news, it will cultivate the habit of careful discrimination."

At the second biennial convention of the Women's Trade

National Women's Trade Union League,

which closed in Chicago on October 1, the

following resolution was unanimously adopted: Whereas, All wars in our day are wars for the exten

sion of markets; Whereas, The interests of women workers in every

industrial country are one, and their industrial and social conditions are in time of peace disastrously influenced

by the enormous expenditure of civilized nations upon battleships and other preparations for war, and in time of war by the depreciations, cruelties and horrors of war;

Whereas, The interests of working women as women, as workers and as mothers are peculiarly bound up in the maintenance of peace and in the avoidance of arma

ments ; be it Resolved, That the delegates of the National Women's

Trade Union League, in convention assembled, urge the establishment of the Court of Arbitral Justice, provided for by the second Hague Conference, and awaiting only the appointment of its judges under some form of inter national agreement, and that they also protest against further increase of the United States navy as unneces

sary for our protection and as tending to aggravate the

rivalry of the nations in building costly armaments.

The celebrated Alsop claim against Chile, Th A*o Caim involving valuable guano deposits and sil

ver mines, which has been pending for

thirty-five years, is in a fair way to- be settled. Mr.

Dawson, former Minister to Chile, has been in Santiago,

negotiating settlement of the claim. The case originated in the advance of money by Americans to the Bolivian

government in return for rights to guano deposits. The

money advanced by Alsop & Co., an American firm, amounted to more than a million dollars. The Bolivian

government recognized the claim and made a contract

for its settlement, the basis of which was to be the re

ceipts from the custom house at Arica, together with

long leases of a number of valuable silver mines. Before these arrangements could be carried out, however, the

war broke out between Chile and Bolivia, and the cus

toms receipts at Arica were taken over by the Chilean

government. Alsop & Co. later appealed to Chile for a settlement. Chile recognized the justice of the claim in

1885, and made severalpromises of settlement. Our gov

ernment is now insisting that the claim be paid promptly or the whole matter referred to impartial arbitration.

Later dispatches from Santiago state that an agreement has been reached for the submission of the claim to the

arbitration of King Edward.

News from the Field. In a very interesting article in La Follette's Magazine

for October 23, by Louis P. Lochner of the University of Wisconsin, entitled " Peace among the Nations," the

encouraging fact is noted that the Association of Cosmo

politan Clubs, founded in 1907, has already, in the space of two years, reached a membership of about two thou

sand, including representatives of about sixty countries. The original club at the University of Wisconsin, founded on March 12, 1903, with sixteen foreign and two native

students, has grown until it now has a membership of

seventy, representing twenty countries. "The Cosmo

politan Clubs have at all times stood for the promotion of universal peace."

" The national association is a branch of the American Peace Society."

" Peace Day,

May 18, is to be observed annually hereafter."

Miss Anna B. Eckstein, of the Board of Directors of the American Peace Society, has been spending some time in Copenhagen in the interests of her World-Peti tion. She has addressed a convention of the clergymen of Copenhagen, the Public School Teachers' Association, the Woman's Suffrage Club, the University Students' Club, the Danish Peace Society, and two public meetings gotten up by a Socialist member of the Danish Parlia ment. Miss Eckstein goes now to give lectures in Ger

many, Austria and Switzerland, and will not return to this country for some time yet. She finds in most places a good deal of interest in the World-Petition.

At the annual meeting of the International Peace Bureau at Brussels, October 9, the following resolution was adopted, expressing approval of the world-petition to the third Hague Conference in favor of a general treaty of obligatory arbitration :

" Whereas, Public opinion, if recorded, will prove an influential factor at the third Hague Conference; and

" Whereas, The 'world-petition to the third Hague

Conference' has begun to successfully establish a statis tical record of the men and women in every country who

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.103 on Wed, 14 May 2014 08:11:48 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1909. THE ADVOCATE OF PEACE. 251 desire to support the governments in their efforts to

perfect the new international order based on the principle of the solidarity of all nations;

"Resolved, That the Commission and the General

Assembly of the International Peace Bureau, meeting at Brussels October 8 and 9, 1909, urgently recommend the signing of the 'world-petition to the third Hague Conference.'"

The Council of the International Arbitration League, founded by the late Sir William Randal Cremer, is hold

ing a series of conferences in some of the chief towns of Great Britain for the discussion of the subject of the

immunity from capture or destruction of private property at sea in time of war. Conferences have already been

arranged for Sheffield, Leicester, Glasgow and Newcastle

on-Tyne. The purpose of the meetings is to try to in duce the British government to change its attitude on this important matter. But for the opposition of Great Britain the second Hague Conference would have signed a convention in favor of the immunity of private property.

The Peace Society of Finland is now publishing an

organ of its work, entitled Wainamoinen, a publication which had been suspended by its former owners.

The secretary of the British Peace Society, Dr. W. E. Darby, and his assistants have organized and held more than twenty-five meetings and conferences in differ ent parts of England and Scotland during the past summer.

The Netherlands General Peace League is offering a

prize of five hundred florins for the best drama in support of arbitration. It is open to dramatic authors of all na tions. The manuscripts must be sent in by March 1, 1911, to the president of the society, " Vrede door Recht," at The Hague.

understanding and more friendly relations between differ ent peoples and races, that of the Wisconsin University baseball team to Japan is unique. The team left for

Japan on August 22 to play a series of ten games with the Keio University team. The members of the visiting team represented twelve Wisconsin cities, the official

representative of the University being Charles McCarthy, Ph.D., '01, of the State Legislative Reference Library. The Wisconsin team carried to Japan the good wishes of the entire college world in this country. They also carried a letter from President Taft to the American Ambassador at Tokyo, requesting the courtesies of the

Embassy for the visitors. The Wisconsin team has returned, and reports that it was royally entertained and "made a reasonably good showing." The score shows that the playing was pretty even, and the teams separated with mutual respect and most friendly feelings. . . . In his address at the recent Lord Mayor's banquet,

Prime Minister Asquith said: "If I speak for one mo ment of Germany, it is to say again that I know of

nothing which will stand in the way of the full and

friendly understanding which it is, I believe, the cherished

object of the wisest statesmanship and of the best moral and social forces in both countries to promote." [Cheers.]

The Berlin correspondent of a London paper says that, although some timid voices in Germany, Conserva tive and other, have been raised, the Socialists alone have so far been courageous enough to stand up frankly in favor of an Anglo-German understanding. . . . In the Danish national budget for 1910-11, pro vision is made for 1,000 crowns for the Bureau of the

Hague Court, 500 crowns for the Peace Bureau at Berne, 730 crowns for the Interparliamentary Union, 3,800 crowns for the expenses of the Interparliamentary Con ference in 1910, and 3,000 crowns for the promotion of the work of the Danish Interparliamentary Group, -a total of about $2,460. There is no doubt that these credits will be voted by the Parliament.

. Among Socialist and workingmen's organizations in Europe there have been many protests against war in recent months. At a meeting in Paris in September organized by the General Confederation of Labor, the six thousand persons present voted a resolution protesting strongly against any declaration of war, and threatening to respond to any such declaration by a general strike.

. . The International Union of Ethical Societies, in

London, has just created the nucleus of an organizing committee for the holding in July, 1911, of a Universal Race Congress. The purpose of the congress will be to discuss, in the light of modern science and conscience, the great race problems, and to encourage good under standing and cordial cooperation among different peoples. Such a congress, if well planned and carried out, will be of very great value to the cause of humanity. The sec retary of the committee is (4. Spiller, 63 South Hill Park, Hampstead, London.

. . The report that Turkey is planning to spend $100,000,000 for a modern Dreadnaught navy is most discouraging, though not at all surprising. She does not need such a navy from any point of view. But other powers are building navies, and therefore she thinks she

Brevities. . . . William C. Dennis, Assistant Solicitor of the State Department, has been appointed by Secretary Knox as agent of the United States to conduct the case, on behalf of our government, of the Orinoco Steamship Company against Venezuela before the Hague Court. This mission had been entrusted to Hon. William I.

Buchanan, through whose influence at Caracas the

agreement for the submission of the case was signed on

February 13 last, and Mr. Dennis had been appointed his assistant. Through the death of Mr. Buchanan Mr.

Dennis succeeds him as agent. The appointment is a most fitting one. Mr. Dennis, in addition to being well trained in international law, has had a large share in

preparing the case for submission.

. . . Andrew Carnegie, on his return to New York

from Scotland on the 1st of November, declared to the

reporters that the work of building armaments with which to fight each other, which the nations are still

carrying on, is disgraceful work. He said that it is a matter of lasting regret that they should still see fit to do so. He declared that the frenzy in England over a Ger

man in vasion is wholly unwarranted, because Germany has absolutely no intention of making war on England. . . .

Among the numerous recent international visits

which have been made with a view to promoting better

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.103 on Wed, 14 May 2014 08:11:48 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions