Above the Battle
cration of injustice. The great public meetings which it has organised on December 15th in the chief towns of the Netherlands have unanimously declared that such a peace seemed neither possible nor even desirable. I will add that certain of the articles of the N.A.O.R. suggest, with all the reserve necessitated by its attitude of neutrality and its profound desire for impartiality, the direction of its suppressed sympathies. Especially the following:—
"To repair the harm done by this war to the prestige of law in international relations. To bow before the law, whether customary or codified in treaties is a duty, even where sanction is wanting. Reform will be in vain: if there is not respect for law, and nations refuse to keep their word, a durable peace is out of the question."
The object of the N.A.O.R. is especially to study the conditions in which we can realise a just, humane, and durable peace, which will secure for Europe a long future of fruitful tranquillity and of common work, and to interest the public opinion of all nations in securing such a peace. I cannot analyse here, owing to lack of space, the various public manifestoes, the Appeal to the People of Holland (October 1914), or the Appeal for Co-operation and the Preparation of Peace, a kind
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