en, the
growing acceptance of the conception of nationality as a just and
expedient basis of government is a powerful guarantee for the
persistence of this joint work of liberation and of union. If, as the
result of the settlement following this war, political readjustments are
made which fairly satisfy the remaining aspirations after national
autonomy, the more pacific atmosphere will favour all opportunities for
co-operation between nations.

The second contribution of the nineteenth century towards political
internationalism is of a more positive character. It consists in a
series of inchoate and fragmentary but genuine attempts of the Great
Powers to work together upon critical occasions in the interests of
'justice and order', as they understood those terms, and to embody in
acts or conventions some policy which is the result of their
deliberations. This flickering light, called the Concert of Europe,
first kindled at the Congress of Vienna, has reappeared fitfully
throughout the century. The treaties, declarations, and conventions,
proceeding from these conferences or congresses of the Powers, have
marked important advances, not only in the substance of international
law, but in the method of legislation. For whereas, before the Congress
of Vienna, all the treaties between states which helped to form the body
of international law were the acts of two or, at the most, a small group
of states, since that time law-making treaties of general application
and of world-wide importance have come into being. The most noteworthy
examples of these general treaties are the Final Act of the Vienna
Congress in 1815, the Declaration of Paris in 1856, the Geneva
Convention of 1864, the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, the General Act of the
Congo Conference in 1885, and the two Hague Conferences of 1899 and
1907. Having regard to the general character of many of the rules laid
down at these conferences, as, for instance, the abolition of the slave
trade, the neutralization of certain lands and waters, and the
regulation of the rules of war, it is clear that we have to recognize
throughout last century the existence of a rudimentary organ of
international legislation, very irregular in its operation, very
imperfect in structure and authority, but none the less a genuine
experiment in international government.

Hardly less significant for our purpose has been the prominent assertion
of the principle of federalism in the formation or gro