"It may certainly be granted, that a little State like Denmark cannot well work at the creation of a European tribunal of arbitration, so far as that means setting itself at the head of a movement for inviting the other European States to a Congress by which its creation shall be adopted. "But a little State like Denmark can always do something in the direction of arbitration between States. It can bring the matter a practical step forward by applying first to the other small States, especially to the neighbour States of Sweden and Norway, and proposing to them that mutual disputes shall in future, as far as possible, be settled by arbitration when other means have failed. The relations between the three northern kingdoms are indeed now so friendly that a war between them can hardly be thought of for a moment. But--as was said in confirmation of the resolution in the first northern Peace Meeting, respecting a permanent arbitration treaty between the three kingdoms--they have carried on many bloody internecine wars, which have only benefited their powerful neighbours, but have been in the highest degree injurious to themselves; and the possibility of war between the three northern kingdoms is not excluded so long as they are not simultaneously neutralized, or in some other way engaged to carry out a common foreign policy. It is no longer ago than 1873 that the so-called "pilots' war" in Oeresund caused much bad blood among relatives on both sides of the sound. That that was settled authoritatively by the mutual declaration of the 14th of August is due to circumstances on whose continuance for the future it is not possible to reckon. Had a strained relation at the same time obtained between one or more of the great powers within or without the Baltic ports, and had these endeavoured to sow discord between the coast powers, that they might fish in the troubled waters, and feather their own nests by getting these small states as their allies; and if one power had got Denmark, but its enemy got Sweden-Norway as an ally--a new northern fratricidal war would have broken out. Even if such a future possibility cannot be entirely eradicated by a mutual arbitration treaty amongst the northern nations, a new guarantee for peace would be secured." (Bluntschli's expression.) "For the small northern kingdoms would by such a treaty acquire an excellent moral support when it came to withstanding the attempt of the great powers to entice or threaten them into taking part in wars as their allies. Such a participation is always a dangerous game, because, as history shows, the small States lose rather than gain. The small States are used as counters for the great ones to play with."