ld Almanac; War Cyclopedia_ (C.P.I.),
under the names of the several countries, and under "Navy";
_German Militarism_ (C.P.I.).

CHAPTER IV

INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE HAGUE CONFERENCES

INTERNATIONAL LAW.--In the civilized world to-day each community is
made up of citizens who have a right to the protection of the laws of
their community and who in turn have the duty of obedience to those
laws. During recent centuries improved means of communication and
transportation have brought all parts of the world closer together, and
there has grown up in the minds of many enlightened thinkers the idea
that the whole civilized world ought to be regarded as a community of
nations. In the past the relations of nations to one another have been
very nearly as bad as that of persons in savage communities. Quarrels
have usually been settled by contests of strength, called wars.
Believers in the idea of the community of nations argue that wars would
cease or at least become much less frequent if this idea of a community
of nations were generally accepted.

The body of rules which nations recognize in their dealings with each
other is usually spoken of as _international law_. As to certain rules
of international conduct the civilized nations of the world have been in
general agreement for many centuries. Among such rules are those for the
carrying out of treaty obligations, the punishment of piracy, the
protection of each other's ambassadors, the rights of citizens of one
country to the protection of the laws of the country they are visiting,
the protection of women and children in time of war.

As in community law so also in international law rules have frequently
grown up as matters of custom. In the second place agreements have
sometimes been reached through negotiation and written out in the form
of treaties between the two nations concerned. In the latter half of the
nineteenth century several attempts were made to strengthen
international law by means of general conferences of the nations. One of
the most famous of these was the Conference of Geneva in 1864, which
reached a number of valuable agreements on the care of wounded soldiers
and gave official international recognition to the Red Cross. At the
very end of the century occurred the first of the two famous
international conferences at The Hague.

Toward this growing movement in the direction of the setting up of a
community of nations in which each has