Unable to accomplish anything definite in this respect because of the vigorous opposition headed by Germany, the delegates turned their attention toward giving official recognition and concrete form to ideas which had already obtained in the settlement of international disputes, and toward the formation of a court before which the nations might have their differences adjudicated. The principles embodied in good offices and mediation and commissions of inquiry have given gratifying evidence of their efficiency, each in its respective capacity. The original achievement of the conference, however, was the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The composition of this court was to include not more than four persons from each of the signatory powers; from which panel, in case of an appeal to arbitration, each party was to select two judges, who, in turn, should elect their own umpire unless otherwise provided by the disputants. That it would be subject to criticism might have been expected. That twenty-six nations could unanimously agree upon any court whatever was the real occasion for surprise. The four cases arbitrated during the eight years intervening between this and the Second Hague Conference served to bring out its defects, chief of which were its decentralized and intangible nature. Nominally a court, in reality it was but a panel scattered all over the world from which a court could, with great difficulty and expense, be selected. Nominally permanent, in reality it had to be re-created for each case to be judged. The Second Hague Conference, working on a basis of this short experience, undertook to remedy these inherent defects in the arbitral machinery by leaving the Permanent Court just as it was, and by creating besides an International Court of Prize to serve a special function indicated by its name, and a court of Judicial Arbitration to supplement the work of, if not eventually to supplant, the former court. To insure greater impartiality and also to encourage the weaker powers the expenses of the new court, instead of falling upon the litigants in each case, were to be prorated among the ratifying powers. To insure greater tangibility and permanency the new court was to be composed of only seventeen members, each to serve a term of twelve years at a salary of $2400 per annum, with an additional $40 for each day of actual service. Furthermore, the court was to meet once a year and to elect each year a delegation of three of its members to sit at The Hague for settling minor cases arising in the interval between regular sessions, having the power also to call extra sessions of the entire court whenever occasion should demand. To insure a more judicial personnel the convention specifies that members shall be qualified to hold high legal posts in their respective countries. The method by which members of the court were to be appointed--the one point upon which the delegates were unable to agree--was deferred for subsequent determination.