IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
MEMBRE DE L'INSTITUT DE DROIT INTERNATIONAL. HONORARY MEMBER OF
THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF JURISPRUDENCE AT MADRID, CORRESPONDING
MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF
INTERNATIONAL LAW

_Festina lente_

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK,
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS.
1919

PREFACE

The three lectures collected in this volume were prepared without any
intention of publication. They were delivered for the purpose of drawing
attention to the links which connect the proposal for a League of
Nations with the past, to the difficulties which stand in the way of the
realisation of the proposal, and to some schemes by which these
difficulties might be overcome. When it was suggested that the lectures
should be brought before the public at large by being issued in book
form I hesitated, because I was doubtful whether the academic method
natural to a University lecture would be suitable to a wider public.
After consideration, however, I came to the conclusion that their
publication might be useful, because the lectures attempt to show how
the development initiated by the two Hague Peace Conferences could be
continued by turning the movement for a League of Nations into the road
of progress that these Conferences opened.

Professional International lawyers do not share the belief that the
outbreak of the World War and its, in many ways, lawless and atrocious
conduct have proved the futility of the work of the Hague Conferences.
Throughout these anxious years we have upheld the opinion that the
progress initiated at the Hague has by no means been swept away by the
attitude of lawlessness deliberately--'because necessity knows no
law'--taken up by Germany, provided only that she should be utterly
defeated, and should be compelled to atone and make ample reparation for
the many cruel wrongs which cry to Heaven. While I am writing these
lines, there is happily no longer any doubt that this condition will be
fulfilled. We therefore believe that, after the map of Europe has been
redrawn by the coming Peace Congress, the third Conference ought to
assemble at the Hague for the purpose of establishing the demanded
League o