The nations of the South are not unaware of this necessity, and after a century of independence they are seeking to reconstitute the ancient unions. Central America, disturbed by periodic wars, is endeavouring to create a Confederation. In 1895 a treaty between Honduras, Nicaragua, and Salvador formed the Republic of Central America; only Costa Rica and Guatemala held aloof from this union. In 1902 all these nations, with the exception of Guatemala, accepted a convention of arbitration. In 1905 the presidents of the five republics met at Corinth in order to honour the work of Morazan and Rufino Barrios; spontaneously, or at the instance of the United States and Mexico, they signed various treaties intended to realise the unity of the sister nations. A Central American Pedagogic Institute was created, and a "Bureau of the Five Republics," with the same object of unification. In 1907, after nine different conflicts in the interval, a conference of these same nations was assembled at Washington. On this occasion a tribunal of arbitration for Central America was installed, and the neutrality of Honduras was recognised. This tribunal, which sits at Cartago, in Costa-Rica, is to judge the conflicts between states and the diplomatic claims of the governments and of individuals. Moreover, the Republics of Central America have agreed to a declaration which provides that they will recognise no government which has been enforced by a revolution or a _coup d'État_, and that they will not intervene in the political movements of neighbouring countries. The Court of Arbitration thus established had already, in 1909, settled differences between Salvador and Honduras, and between Guatemala and Nicaragua, by rejecting the pretentions of Honduras in the one case and of Nicaragua in the other.[3] In {348} short, the United States and Mexico are leading these peoples, who used to be in a condition of perpetual discord, towards the unity necessary to their progress. A Congress met recently (1911) at Caracas, which was attended by the representatives of the states liberated by Bolivar--Venezuela, New Granada, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru. This was a truly Bolivian assembly in honour of the national hero. The object of this Congress was to reconstitute Greater Colombia with the three Republics which formerly made part of it--Venezuela, New Granada, and Ecuador; this would be a return, after the lapse of a century, to the harmonious union of the sister peoples, which would truly give them a common future. The formation of a great Bolivian State, after a period of isolation lasting more than a century, is certainly the dream of generous statesmen. It is not easy to conceive of the political union of peoples as far removed as those of Venezuela and Bolivia, but this assembly might well result in a natural union of the peoples of the North; a new Greater Colombia, whose provinces would stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific.