After a long and intricate discussion we separated on very good terms, having made, I think, decided progress toward fusing all three arbitration plans into one which shall embody the merits of all. One difficulty we found, of which neither our State Department nor ourselves had been fully aware. Our original plan required that the judges for the arbitration tribunal should be nominated by the highest courts of the respective nations; but De Martens showed us that Russia has no highest court in our sense of the word. Then, too, there is Austria-Hungary, which has two supreme courts of equal authority. This clause, therefore, we arranged to alter, though providing that the original might stand as regards countries possessing supreme courts. At lunch we had Baron de Bildt, Swedish minister at Rome and chief of the Swedish delegation at the conference, and Baron de Bille, Danish minister at London and chief delegate from Denmark. De Bille declared himself averse to a permanent tribunal to be in constant session, on the ground that, having so little to do, it would be in danger of becoming an object of derision to the press and peoples of the world. We were all glad to find, upon the arrival of the London "Times," that our arbitration project seemed to be receiving extensive approval, and various telegrams from America during the day indicated the same thing. It looks more and more as if we are to accomplish something. The only thing in sight calculated to throw a cloud over the future is the attitude of the German press against the whole business here; the most virulent in its attacks being the high Lutheran conservative--and religious!--journal in Berlin, the "Kreuz-Zeitung." Still, it is pleasant to see that eminent newspaper find, for a time, some other object of denunciation than the United States. June 3. In the afternoon drove to Scheveningen and took tea with Count Munster and his daughter. He was somewhat pessimistic, as usual, but came out very strongly in favor of the American view as regards exemption of private property on the high seas. Whether this is really because Germany would derive profit from it, or because she thinks this question a serviceable entering wedge between the United States and Great Britain, there is no telling at present. I am sorry to say that our hopes regarding it are to be dashed, so far as the present conference is concerned. Sundry newspaper letters and articles in the "Times" show clearly that the English Government is strongly opposed to dealing with it here and now; and as France and Russia take the same position, there is no hope for any action, save such as we can take to keep the subject alive and to secure attention to it by some future conference. CHAPTER XLVII AS PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN DELEGATION AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE OF THE HAGUE: III--1899 June 4.