such hearty unanimity, but he has made an enviable reputation in the private walks of life as a good farmer and a successful breeder of the best types of registered live stock. This brief and hastily prepared sketch would be far from complete without some reference to his long and highly esteemed services as a director in various registration and other live stock organizations, state fairs, industrial expositions, world's fairs, etc., but the time at my command will not allow me to refer to them further. The distinguished honor bestowed on Mr Colman on this occasion by the conferring of the degree of doctor of agriculture by the great University of Illinois, has been well earned. His earnest and success ful advocacy of the practice of the best methods in all that pertains to rural husbandry contained in the weekly messages he has sent through Colman's Rural World, to the progressive farmers of the Mississippi Valley for more than half a century is not the least of his great achieve ments. His writings and speeches have made him a leader in the campaign of education he has so ably conducted, and his influence for good in encouraging the residents of the farm to obtain the best results in the growing of crops, breeding of live stock and perfecting the high standard of rural citizenship by the education of their sons and daughters cannot be measured or overestimated. All the honors that have been conferred upon him have been most worthily bestowed and particularly that of doctor of agriculture conferred by this University. ASSEMBLY OF THE COLLEGE OF LAW INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION HONORABLE JACOB MCG. DICKINSON General Counsel of the Illinois Central Railroad Company, Chicago In 1904 there was organized in Chicago an International Arbitration Society, and Doctor Edmund J. James was elected as president and at present holds that office. Its purpose is to promote the policy of submitting international disputes to impartial courts of arbitration. instead of the decision of the sword. Dr. James took the initiative in the propaganda in the Middle West to arouse and give expression to public sentiment for ratifying the treaties submitted by the President to the Senate at its last session, and it was through the enthusiastic and self-sacrificing efforts of him and his coworkers, whose zeal he aroused and constantly stimulated, that a large and representative meeting, held in Chicago, and presided over by Mr. Robert Lincoln, adopted resolutions favoring the extension by the government of the United States of the principle of international arbitration to all questions which cannot otherwise be brought to a pacific determination, and requesting their representatives in the United States Senate to exert their influence in behalf of such treaties and of their prompt consideration and approval by the Senate. The great office in which Dr. James has just been installed, will not withdraw him from the humanitarian work of endeavoring to realize the wish expressed by Washington of banishing from the earth war, which he denominated a "plague to mankind," but rather with increased prestige, will consecrate him anew to the noblest aspiration that can in respect of mundane affairs fill the mind and heart of man. At the Mohonk Lake conference of this year, attended by many of the most distinguished judges, jurists, diplomats, educators and clergymen of the nation, and presided over by the Honorable George Gray, on the motion of Dr. Daniel C. Gilman, it was unanimously resolved to suggest to the universities and colleges of the United States that concerted efforts be put forth to secure among undergraduates early and careful consideration of the principles of international arbitration. In compliment to your distinguished President, who is so conspicuously associated with this noble movement, and desiring, even though in an humble way, to collaborate with Dr. Gilman and his associates, I shall address you upon the subject of "International Arbitration." It is a product of the centuries, the resultant of all ideas and efforts for the substitution of some other tribunal than that of war for the adjustment of international affairs. Every theory of the doctrinaires, however impracticable for the times, which contained a germ of truth, as well as every real achievement, no matter how small in comparison with the total of international depravity which prevailed, has become a common heritage of humanity, an inspiration transmitted from age to age, advancing the thoughts and ideals of men and preparing them for international arbitration, which, entering upon a new era about 1815, has so progressed in our time that no one can doubt that it is the most powerful force now working upon the nations. for the temporal happiness of mankind. International arbitration, as we know it, is no more a product of the last hundred years than was the Federal Constitution of 1789 a product of that year It is a flower of our time, but the roots of the plant which matured it found their beginnings in the soil of previous centuries. The Amphictyonic Council, the earliest institution established by independent states clothed with the office of preventing war between themselves, antedating authentic Greek history and enduring for more than fifteen hundred years; the arbitration of the rights of Adrastus and Amphiaraus to the Kingdom of Argos; the adjustment of the conflicting claims of the Athenians and the Megarians to Salamis; the plan of Henry IV to consolidate Europe into a practical federation of all the powers to be styled the "Christian Republic," with assurances for liberty of commerce and the establishment of a general council modeled upon that of the Amphictyons; the epochal work of Hugo Grotius, coming as one of the greatest boons to humanity at a period of its greatest agony, a fair flower of peace springing up in the midst of the carnage of the Thirty Years' War; the plan of William Penn, published in 1693-94 and entitled "An Essay Toward the Present and Future Peace of Europe by the Establishment of an European Dyet Parliament or Estates," which proposed that the sovereigns of Europe should meet by deputies in a "General Dyet" and establish rules of justice between themselves, that a "Sovereign Assembly" should adjust differences and coerce recalcitrant states, that a balance of power should be maintained by the distribution of votes, and that unwilling powers should be forced to adhesion; the "projet" of Abbé Saint Pierre in the eighteenth century, which embodied the essential principles of the plans of Henry IV and Penn; the scheme put forward by Bentham, 1780-1889, for an international tribunal to secure universal and perpetual peace, in which he proposed a reduction of armaments and coercive powers, and as a last resource the enforcement of decrees by a contingent furnished by the several states, but, exalted above all other effective remedies, publicity, the promulgation of the decision and an appeal to the enlightened judgment of mankind, which would by its moral force, put recalcitrant nations under the ban of public disapprobation; the plan of Kant of 1796 to establish a "Universal Union of States," such as would obliterate separate governmental independence, or a voluntary "Permanent Congress of Nations," which might determine their differences by a civil method; all of these are a part of the literature of international arbitration, although some of them were chimerical and others really did not embody any essential principle of international arbitration. They were all antagonistic to continuous wars and advanced in a greater or less degree the cause of peace. The thoughts and sentiments thus implanted in the mind of humanity, though, like all great things, slow of development, at last stirred the public conscience and subdued, having as a powerful auxiliary the economic conditions involved in the direct and indirect costs of modern warfare, the fierce tendencies of nations. But little practical progress was made during the period of blood and carnage that prevailed until the beginning of the nineteenth century. The formation of our federal Constitution, creating for the first time a court with full and final power to settle all controversies between sovereign states, was the greatest step ever taken toward substituting judicial procedure for appeal to arms. About a year ago the supreme court gave judgment in a large sum in favor of South Dakota against North Carolina, which was promptly paid, althought it was earnestly contended that the court had no jurisdiction over the controversy. The Jay treaty of 1794 contained provisions for adjusting by arbitration three questions which threatened to involve us in war with Great Britain, and under it three separate boards of arbitration were created. Our treaty of 1795 with Spain likewise contained a provision for arbitration. By the Treaty of Ghent in 1814 three. boards of arbitration were created. After the overthrow of Napoleon a general reaction began in all civilized countries against barbarous methods of settling disputes. Peace ideas were fostered and promoted in every way. Peace societies and peace congresses constantly stirred the conscience of the world. The Treaty of 1848, which concluded peace between the United States and Mexico, provided that the two nations would in the future adjust their disagreements by pacific negotiations and by arbitration. In 1851 the Committee on Foreign Relations reported to the United States Senate a resolution declaring that it was desirable to secure in treaties a provision for arbitration. Similar resolutions were introduced in Congress in 1854, 1872, 1874, and 1888. The treaty which most profoundly influenced the ideas of the world on the subject of arbitration was that of Washington of 1871, which provided four arbitrations. John Morley says: "The Treaty of Washington and the Geneva arbitration stand out as the most noticeable victory in the nineteenth century of the noble art of preventive diplomacy and the most signal exhibition in their history of self-command in two of the three chief democratic powers of the Western World." The arbitration held in Paris in 1893, in the Fur Seal case, and the arbitral tribunal, which decided the Alaskan boundary dispute, were next in importance. There have been upward of two hundred instances since 1815 where international differences have been settled by reference to arbitration and quasi-arbitration, and the United States has been a party to more than sixty of these. A variety of questions, such as those involving disputed boundaries, injuries to public and private property and persons, disputed sovereignty over islands, seizure of ships, and interference with fisheries and commerce, have been peaceably and economically adjusted, which in former times would probably have led to war. Although it has been often said that questions of national honor cannot be submitted to arbitration, experience has shown that the term "national honor" is variable and in some degree shadowy, and that many questions which, under a former code, would have been catalogued under "national honor" have been submitted and settled in this way, even though at the outset, as was said by Lord Russell in regard to the Alabama claims, such a submission was thought to be incompatible with national dignity. The Hague conference stands as the most notable event in the history of the world bearing upon international peace. The nations participating were Germany, United States of America, AustriaHungary, Belgium, China, Denmark, Spain, France, Great Britain. and Ireland, Greece, Italy, Japan, Luxemburg, Mexico, Montenegro, Netherlands, Persia, Portugal, Roumania, Russia, Servia, Siam, Sweden and Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and Bulgaria, twenty-six in all, represented by one hundred members. Of the independent governments of the world, the Central and South American Republics, the Sultanates of Morocco and Muscat, the Orange Free State, the Principality of Monaco, the Republic of San Marino, and the Kingdom of Abyssinia were the only ones not represented. The conference held ten sessions, the last being on July 29. They agreed for submission for signature by the plenipotentiaries up to December 31, 1899, on three conventions and three declarations to form so many separate acts. The signatory powers agreed to use their best efforts to insure the pacific settlement of international differences; in cases of disagreement or conflict before an appeal to arms, to have, as far as circumstances allow, recourse to the good offices or mediation of one or more friendly powers; to sanc |