In justification of the action of the President, in view of the popular feeling that more urgent pressure might have been used to cause the cessation of hostilities, Secretary Hay clearly showed that the United States Government was the only one of all those approached by the republics which had even tendered its good offices in the interest of peace. He called attention to the fact that despite the popular clamor to the contrary the action of the Government was fully in accord with the provisions of the Hague Conference and went as far as that Convention warranted. A portion of Article III of that instrument declares: "Powers, strangers to the dispute, may have the right to offer good offices or mediation, even during the course of hostilities," but Article V asserts, "The functions of the mediator are at an end when once it is declared either by one of the parties to the dispute or by the mediator, himself, that the means of conciliation proposed by him are not accepted."[20] Obviously any further action on the part of the United States was not required under the circumstances, and Secretary Hay seems fully justified in his statement that "the steps taken by the President in his earnest desire to see an end to the strife which caused so much suffering may already be said to have gone to the extreme limit permitted to him." Moreover, had the President preferred not to present to Great Britain the Republic's request for good offices, his action could have been justified by the conditions under which the representatives of the United States at the Hague signed that convention. At that time the express declaration was made that "Nothing contained in this Convention shall be so construed as to require the United States of America to depart from its traditional policy of not intruding upon, interfering with, or entangling itself with questions of policy or internal administration of any foreign State."[21] [Footnote 20: Moore, Digest of Int. Law, Vol. VII, p. 23.] [Footnote 21: Moore, Digest of Int. Law, Vol. VII, p. 21.] The final utterance of the President in regard to the mission of the Boers was the conclusive statement made through Secretary Hay: "The President sympathizes heartily in the desire of all the people of the United States that the war ... may, for the sake of both parties engaged, come to a speedy close; but having done his full duty in preserving a strictly neutral position between them and in seizing the first opportunity that presented itself for tendering his good offices in the interests of peace, he feels that in the present circumstances no course is open to him except to persist in the policy of impartial neutrality. To deviate from this would be contrary to all our traditions and all our national interests, and would lead to consequences which neither the President nor the people of the United States could regard with favor."[22] [Footnote 22: Moore, Digest of Int. Law, Vol. VII, p. 21.]