You will remember that the First Hague Conference established a so-called Permanent Court of Arbitration. It is not a definite, tangible tribunal, but merely a panel of a hundred or more men from whom the arbiters in each specific case may be selected; and therefore, though it is a great step in the right direction and though it has accomplished some good work, it has not commanded full confidence and recognition. To supplement this court the Conference of 1907 proposed a new organization--a Judicial Court of Arbitration, to be composed of seventeen judges of recognized legal authority, to sit for terms of twelve years, and to be competent to decide all cases. Here, then, is the nucleus of an easily accessible supreme court of the world, whose decisions would soon build up a new system of international law. Its composition, jurisdiction, and procedure are agreed upon. The vital problem, a mode of selecting the judges, remains unsettled. Evidently, then, the first great duty of the next Hague Conference is to put into operation this court, of which all the nations recognize the need and desirability. Following logically the establishment of competent machinery for arbitration comes the second great duty of that conference--the passage of a convention binding the nations to resort to this court in all cases that fail of ordinary diplomatic settlement. The Judicial Court of Arbitration, if the nations are not bound to use it, would certainly fail of its purpose. A general treaty making arbitration obligatory is not too much to demand, for the Conference of 1907 declared itself unanimous "in recognizing the principle of compulsory arbitration." Separate arbitration treaties mounting into the hundreds have been negotiated between individual nations, but almost all contain that fatal reservation of questions of "honor and vital interests." Honor and vital interests--could any words be more vague and indefinite? Are these not the very cases which interested nations are least competent to decide? A complete answer to that silly reservation is found in our hundred years' peace with Great Britain. As John W. Foster, that keen student of our diplomatic history, has said, "The United States can have no future dispute with England more seriously involving the territorial integrity, the honor of the nation, its vital interests, or its independence, than those questions which have already been submitted to arbitration." Denmark has agreed with Italy and the Netherlands to arbitrate all questions that fail of diplomatic settlement, thus insuring perpetual peace between those nations. Here indeed is the pathway of true national honor.