The United States was equipped for war, with a victorious army at command, and with a record of two victorious wars over England. It was a chance to launch another, had our nation been inclined toward militarism. Instead, our country did its part in appointing members of a joint high commission, of five British and five American statesmen, who met in Washington in 1871 and adjusted the difficulty. These commissioners made a treaty, known as the Treaty of Washington, by which it was agreed that the claims of either nation against the other should be submitted to a board of arbitration to be appointed by friendly nations. In 1872 this board met at Geneva, Switzerland, and decided the claims in favor of the United States. Great Britain paid fifteen million five hundred thousand dollars for the damage done by the cruisers built in her ports; but even more important was the precedent established by two great nations. Through a period in which the world was singularly free from great wars the peace ideal grew among those countries where the democratic form of government was progressing. The other nations, striving to maintain that elusive standard of political and trade domination known as the balance of power, juggled with the peace idea, but from a different point of view. And it was, strangely enough, the Czar of Russia who proposed the establishment of an international court for the settling of international disputes. His idea and that of the nations who accepted the plan was to keep peace by a settlement of the causes of war, and also to reduce the military and naval armaments of the great Powers. He also brought forward the idea that, if war should come, the conditions of warfare should be made less terrible for the men who were fighting. He invited the delegates of the nations of the world to a conference at The Hague, in the Netherlands, in May, 1899. The first conference promoted--to all appearances--a general good feeling, but did not formulate actual rules. The second, called by the Czar in 1907, at the request of the government of the United States, and extending from June to October of that year, promulgated certain rules that were regarded until the beginning of the war by Germany in 1914 as those which would hold all civilized nations. The articles of this conference, known as The Hague Conventions, provided for: I.--The pacific settling of international disputes; II.--The recovery of debts contracted; III.--Rules for the opening of hostilities; IV.--Laws and customs of war on land; V.--Rights and duties of neutral states and individuals in warfare on land; VI.--Treatment of enemy’s merchant ships at the opening of hostilities; VII.--Transformation of merchant ships into war vessels; VIII.--Placing of submarine mines; IX.--Bombardment of undefended towns by naval forces; X.--Adoption of humane standards authorized by the Geneva Convention to maritime warfare; XI.--Restrictions on right of capture in maritime war;