ESSAYS  AND  ADDRESSES
society among nations, was on the contrary—and
we must be gratified that it was so proclaimed by
The Hague Conference—to leave nothing undone
to prevent war before it broke out between friendly
Powers, just as it is likewise its duty to do every-
thing, once war has been declared, to shorten its
duration and to attenuate its horrors.
Furthermore, war and peace are not the only
questions arising between States. As civilization
progresses, the ties which bind nations, as well as
men, together, become more complex, and thus it is
that for half a century, diplomacy has been occu-
pied in concluding a number of treaties, which con-
stitute temporary laws, between all or a number of
civilized States.
I shall cite the Postal and Telegraphic Conven-
tions, those which created a monetary union between
various Powers and those which aim at the protect-
ing of industrial, commercial, literary or artistic
rights.
And here we enter upon a new order of questions,
I mean those which concern private interests and
the relations between nations as to the application
of their private laws to foreigners.
It was a dream, to suppose, as had supposed
Rousseau and his school in the eighteenth century,
that man was a sort of purely reasoning being,
identical in all countries, to whom might be applied
universal rules drawn not from experience and tra-
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