nd friendly communication with the
delegates. Canning's private instructions to this envoy declared that,
"Any project for putting the U. S. of North America at the head of an
American Confederacy, as against Europe, would be highly displeasing to
your Government. It would be felt as an ill return for the service
which has been rendered to those States, and the dangers which have
been averted from them, by the countenance and friendship, and public
declarations of Great Britain; and it would probably, at no distant
period, endanger the peace both of America and of Europe."

The Panama Congress was without practical results and it was more than
half a century before the scheme for international cooeperation on the
part of American states was again taken up. In 1881 Secretary Blaine
issued an invitation to the American republics to hold a conference at
Washington, but the continuance of the war between Chile and Peru
caused an indefinite postponement of the proposed conference. Toward
the close of President Cleveland's first administration the invitation
was renewed and the First International Conference of American States
convened at Washington in 1890. It happened that when the Conference
met Mr. Blaine was again Secretary of State and presided over its
opening sessions. The most notable achievement of this Conference was
the establishment of the Bureau of American Republics, now known as the
Pan-American Union. The Second International Conference of American
States, held in the City of Mexico in 1901, arranged for all American
states to become parties to the Hague Convention of 1899 for the
pacific settlement of international disputes and drafted a treaty for
the compulsory arbitration, as between American states, of pecuniary
claims. The Third Conference, held at Rio Janeiro in 1906, extended
the above treaty for another period of five years and proposed that the
subject of pecuniary claims be considered at the second Hague
Conference. Added significance was given to the Rio Conference by the
presence of Secretary Root who, although not a delegate, made it the
occasion of a special mission to South America. The series of notable
addresses which he delivered on this mission gave a new impetus to the
Pan-American movement. The Fourth Conference, held at Buenos Ayres in
1910, was occupied largely with routine matters. It extended the
pecuniary claims convention for an indefinite period.

The conferences abov