On account of my appointment as Minister I have left the committee on organization of the Interparliamentary Conference; yet I hope, as representative of the government, to give to the Conference the address of welcome in September. The limited space in the hall where the meetings are to be held will permit only a small number of guests and representatives of the press to be present; nevertheless the committee will doubtless assure so prominent an advocate of the peace cause a place among the very first. It will delight me to greet you as well as your husband here in September, and also our friend Pirquet and, if possible, others from your country. Our hospitable city, with its splendid beach, will permit visitors to combine the useful with the agreeable; and the assured visit of many prominent men will, it is to be hoped, permit the Conference, in which the presidents of both our chambers will take part, to accomplish something beneficial in regard to the practical promotion of international arbitration. With friendly greeting, your devoted S. van Houzeau Thus the opportunity was afforded us of being present during the notable debates of that national representative Conference which was the precursor—and, one may say the cause—of the later Conference of nations at The Hague. On the day of the opening session, the third of September, there was a reception in the rotunda of the Zoölogical Garden. Here the participants and the guests met together. The president of the Conference, Rahusen, made an address to the foreign Parliamentarians, from which I took down in my notebook the following sentences: If we pass beyond the boundaries of our country, do we imagine ourselves in a hostile land? Have you had any such experience in coming here? I believe that I am justified in saying No. ... It is a phenomenon of our time that we find a solidarity among the nations such as did not formerly exist. ... I know well that there are still men who ridicule such ideas; meantime let us rejoice that no one condemns them. ... The morning glow of international righteousness indicates the setting of the old war sun. If the last rays of this sun—which, decrepit with age, has already lost its blaze and its warmth—shall once be wholly extinguished,[8] then we, or those who come after us, shall be filled with jubilant joy, and shall be astonished that the civilized world could ever have called in brute force as an arbiter between nations no longer inimical to each other but bound together by so many common interests. After this official part of the evening the company sauntered out into the open air, where the friends, some promenading, some taking places at tables about the rotunda, met and remained chatting till midnight.