The International Union of the Hague Conferences (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The International Union of the Hague Conferences

IN studying the problem of obligatory arbitration the author became impressed with the conviction of the extent to which the proper solution of a separate problem of that kind is at the present day dependent upon the fact that a clear idea shall first have been obtained of the direction which the Hague work as a whole has given to the develop ment of international law. Neither the diplomats of the Hague Conferences nor the specialists in the theory of international law have thus far studied in detail this cardinal question.

As a result of his investigation of this problem the author arrived at wholly new conclusions. But this fact has not troubled him. He who brings new ideas to light must in the nature of things stand at first alone. And this isolation will, in Germany, be all the greater in an age such as ours. The view which Nietzsche was the first to present strikingly, that the period of German unity and economic impetus must be followed by an unfortunate setback in the intel lectual life of Germany, is admitted as just by many persons at the present day. The voluntary barriers which a de cadent age has set for itself in respect to its ideas and its ideals must also have a fatal influence upon the German science of international law. But already the spring winds of a new age are blowing abroad, and those who hold to the ideas of 1875 are everywhere being forced to defend their position. Thus it has now become possible to obtain recognition for new standards in international law as well.

It is true that the unfortunate political events of the past year have called forth in me serious doubts as to my individual attitude with respect to the value of the work of The Hague - doubts which to some extent persist down to the present day. Indeed, while I was writing this book there came into my mind many a time a sad story which is often told in Munster, the city of my birth. There lived there a leader of the Anabaptists who shortly after the founding of the millennium withdrew into solitude in order to write a great work in which he might portray to his contemporaries the grandeur of this ideal state and propagate its theories. But when he came out again before the populace, his face beaming with satisfaction upon the completion of his work, he found that the millennium had become a reign of terror and of wild disorder. In like manner let the author who writes his books from the heart, and who makes it his ambition to take a conscious part in the progressive development of his country and of all man kind, beware of a like experience.

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