ressing the
assembly either in French, German, or English, as they prefer, each
speech being followed by a brief _resume_ in the other two languages
from the interpreter. In the commissions, by an unwritten but generally
accepted custom, French and German are the only languages used.
(Latterly the representatives of the United States of America, with the
individualistic courage that becomes them, have shown a disposition to
rebel against this custom and defy it; but the close of the Zurich
meeting left it uncertain whether in this particular the New World will
be able to prevail over the Old.) In the dignified speech-making of the
General Assembly the recurrent changes of language, if a little
disconcerting at first, can be faced with tolerable equanimity; but when
it is a question of the quicker verbal sword-play which goes on in the
commissions, the member imperfect in the tongues finds his position
occasionally difficult. The sympathies of every humane person must go
out to the expert who, having just made a telling _expose_ of his case
in French well practised for the occasion, encounters a crushing
rejoinder in German of which he can barely follow the general drift.

The composition of these commissions--in which all the real work of the
conferences is done--is truly heterogeneous. A commission may represent
a dozen nationalities; it will certainly contain specimens of every
social class, members of the most varied shades of thought in politics,
religion, and sociology. I can still remember the constituents of my
first commission at Geneva in 1906. Our subject was the night-work of
young persons. At the head of the table was a professor of Civil Law in
the University of Louvain. On either side of him sat a Catholic clerical
member of the German Reichstag; a German Protestant pastor from Bavaria;
a distinguished Parisian engineer; an Austrian nobleman interested in
social reform; a Hungarian man of science; a Dutch factory inspector; a
Swiss Trade Union secretary; and myself. We were a motley crew, but the
strange 'pattern' which we must have presented to the observation of any
higher intelligences interested in our deliberations had no effect on
the goodwill and good humour with which they were conducted.

The range of subjects considered at international meetings is very wide.
It includes all questions relating to the labour of women, young persons
and children; matters of health and hygiene, with special referenc