A PRACTICAL INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM
Conference undertake collective responsibility for such enforcement. Several times recently in the United States Congress resolutions have been introduced looking toward a calling together of the neutral nations in the interests of world order. This suggests a mode of procedure which may yet be adopted during the progress of the present war, and which certainly ought to be adopted during the progress of any future war, if unfortunately there should be such. There were forty-four nations of the world signatory to the Second Hague Conference. Ten of these nations are now (April 1, 1915) busy in the worst conflict that the world has known. This leaves thirty-four nations not at war, whose interests, nevertheless, are being seriously prejudiced every day that the war lasts. When the rights of any neutral nation are violated, when the safety of her people and the security of her business interests are threatened, it becomes at once imperative to protest against the infringement of such rights and interests. But it is always dangerous for a single nation to make such a protest by itself. Misunderstandings in diplomatic exchanges, long pent up prejudices and emotions are apt to be aroused which may plunge such a protesting nation into the very war against whose procedure its protest is directed. But if the neutral nations protest together, the protest has great weight and becomes a very important factor in maintaining the order of the world.
II
While the European war lasts, therefore, the first item in the program of the new internationalism is the calling together of a conference of the thirty-four neutral nations signatory to the Second Hague Conference. The United States, as the leading neutral power, might well
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