Budapest, December 15. Peace Union established yesterday. Meeting conducted by B. von Berzeviczy, vice president of the Reichstag. Addresses in Hungarian by Jókai, and in German by Baroness von Suttner; a whirlwind of applause. Several hundred prospective members come forward. Voted to accept the invitation to the Seventh World’s Peace Congress. Influential personages chosen to serve on the directorate, among them two members of the former cabinet. Jókai, president. Unexampled enthusiasm shown by the press; all the Hungarian and German papers devote from four to ten columns to the reports. Prime Minister Banffy declared to Baroness von Suttner that both the Interparliamentary Conference and the World’s Peace Congress would be welcomed in Budapest, and that the government would not only assist but would take the lead in the arrangements, though they were not instituted by the government. But simultaneously my diaries bring back the echo of very gloomy events and voices from that time. Under various dates of December I find the following entries: “War in sight.” So it is reported in all the papers since this dispatch was received: “The President of the United States has spoken insultingly and imperatively now that England has rejected arbitration in the Venezuela affair.” Now England has no alternative—so run the leading articles—but to pick up the gauntlet. Fresh dispatches: All America aroused over Cleveland’s message; all England in a rage; demands for many millions for warships, torpedoes, fortifications; a hundred thousand Irishmen have offered their services to the United States. The war-prophesying tone of the leading articles is accentuated; the familiar “inevitableness” of the conflict is demonstrated. Every journalist on the Continent is able to point out with certainty what England cannot put up with except at a loss of her honor, what all Europe cannot permit without imperiling its interests.... What is going to be the result?... The result I chronicled ten days later in the following words: It was a test of strength. Only a few years ago, when the peace idea had not as yet taken form and utterance, the misfortune would have inevitably occurred. The greater part of the press, the chauvinists of all countries, the military parties, the speculators, those engaged in the industries of war, adventurers of all kinds who expected personal advantage from the general scrimmage,—all these have assuredly left nothing undone to promote the breaking out of war. On the other hand, negotiations were instituted. Not only our Unions, but also chambers of commerce and mercantile corporations took a stand against the war, and in almost all churches sermons were preached against it, and statesmen, interviewed as to their opinions, revolted at the thought of settling the question by an appeal to arms.