33. There is, secondly, the difficulty of contenting the opposite interests of the members of the community of states. But this, too, is in practice not insurmountable. Of course, where there is such a brawling between these interests that no agreement is possible, there can from the outset be no talk of international legislation. This, however, is not everywhere the case. On the contrary, it is often and in different areas the case, that the _international_ interests of states make themselves felt so urgently and so cogently that these states are ready to sacrifice their particular interests if only a reasonable compromise be open to them. [Sidenote: Contrasted methods of drafting.] 34. There is further the difficulty of finding expression in adequate language for the intention of the legislator. Even the internal legislation of states suffers under this difficulty in so far as the art of legislation is still very clumsy and undeveloped. For _international_ legislation there is in addition the further difficulty that different groups of peoples employ very different methods in drafting their laws. If we were to give to an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a German the task of drafting a law upon the same topic, and if they were provided with the point of view from which the regulation of individual points was to proceed, so that the intention of the draftsmen would be the same, three very different drafts would nevertheless emerge. The English draft would deal in the most concrete manner possible with the situations to which it meant to apply; it would adduce as many particular cases as possible, and so would run the risk of forgetting some series of cases altogether. The German draft would be as abstract as is possible, and would entirely disregard individual cases, except such as required a special treatment; and so it would expose itself to the danger that in practice cases would be brought within the enactment which were outside the intention of the legislator. The French draft would attach more weight to principles than to individual points, enunciating principles in a legislative manner and leaving it to practice to construct out of these principles the rule for the particular case. Now, seeing that French is the language of international legislation, and so in the editing of drafts at the Hague Conferences the lion's share will naturally fall to French jurists attending the Conference, it will scarcely be possible to prevent the French method of legislation from obtaining great influence over international legislation. But there is no need for this mode of legislation to become dominant. The jurist representatives of other states must see to it that the French method is perfected by their own; the English and the Germans must make it their business to bring the drafts into a more concrete form, and to split up principles into more abstract rules. In this way, it may in time be possible by means of