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When nations have one banner

And creeds have found one fold,
Then hate's last note of discord
In all God's world shall cease
In the conquest which is service,

In the victory which is peace.

With the words of Washington, the father of our country, in my heart: “My first wish is to see the plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth," I now join in dedicating this home of the Bureau of the American Republics to the highest of all its missions, the abolition of the crime of killing man by man as a means of setting international disputes.

In closing the formal exercises, President Taft said:

I wish to congratulate our sister republics upon the marvelous progress that they have made in the last two decades — in material advancement, and in that without which either spiritual or material advancement is impossible, in peace, in the stability of their government, in the consciousness that it is the annals of a peaceful, happy country that are tiresome. The few instances of disturbed countries that remain are being made less in number by the wonderful progress and prosperity of those who preserve the stability of their government by the peaceful rule of the majority.

It goes without saying that in the foreign policy of the United States its greatest object is the preservation of peace among the American Republics. And it goes also without saying that the organization of the Bureau of American Republics, and the making of this family of American Republics, are events that tend more than anything else to the preservation of that peace, for we twentyone Republics can not afford to have any two or any three of us quarrel. We must stop. And Mr. Carnegie and I will not be satisfied until all nineteen of us can intervene by proper measures to suppress a quarrel between any other two. Of course, we are not all philanthropists, as Mr. Carnegie is, and we have an additional interest in the Bureau of American Republics and in the cultivation of good will between the twenty-one Republics in that we hope each of us may profit by the trade which will be promoted by our closer relations.

This is the centennial year of many of the twenty-one Republics, and it is very fitting that the building which represents their closer union should be dedicated in this year.

There is only one other happy feature of the occasion to which I wish to refer, and that is the absolute fitness for the making of this Bureau a success, of Mr. John Barrett. He was born for it, and I hope he will continue to make it more and more useful as the years go on.

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and I speak with modesty, there is nothing that this

For the present Secretary of State, I want to say because he and I are in the same administration Government can do to promote the solidity of the union between the twenty-one Republics that meet here in this building in joint ownership, that he is not willing and anxious to do. And, if I have any influence with the administration, I propose to back him to the full in carrying this policy out.

The dedication of the Pan-American Building is in the best sense of the word an international event, deeply concerning the future interests and intercourse of the twenty-one Republics of the Western Hemisphere. It is the visible evidence of the progress of a century towards closer union and clearer understanding. It is likewise a guarantee for the future and will doubtless generate the sentiment of solidarity and fellowship which it proclaims and perpetuates.

RAILWAYS IN CHINA

1. The Hukuang Loan Agreement

Late in May last the United States Government learned that an understanding had been reached between important British, French and German financial groups suported by their Governments by which they were to furnish funds for the construction of two great railways in China. The United States, believing that sympathetic cooperation between the governments most vitally interested would best subserve the policies of maintenance of Chinese political integrity and equality of commercial opportunity, suggested that American cooperation with the powerful international financial group already formed would be useful to further the policies to which all were alike pledged.

The American Government pointed out that the greatest danger at present in China to the open door and the development of foreign trade arose from disagreements among the western nations, and expressed the opinion that nothing would afford so impressive an object lesson to China. and the world as the sight of the four great capitalist nations - Great Britain, Germany, France, and the United States standing together for equality of commercial opportunity.

An agreement was soon reached with the Chinese Government that American bankers should take one fourth of the total loan and that Americans and American materials should have all the same rights, privileges, preferences, and discretions for all present and prospective lines that were reserved to the British, German, and French nationals. and materials under the terms of their original agreement, except only the right to appoint chief engineers for the two sections about to be placed under contract. As to the latter point China gave assurance that American engineers would be employed upon the engineering corps of both roads and that the present waiving of America's right to chief

engineers would in no way prejudice its rights in that regard when future extensions should be constructed. After several months of continuous negotiation, the right to such American all-round equal participation has been acknowledged and a final settlement on this basis has been completed.

The grounds for this energetic action on the part of the United States Government have not been generally understood. Railroad loans floated by China have in the past generally been given an Imperial guarantee and secured by first mortgages on the lines constructed or by pledging provincial revenues as security. The proposed hypothecation of China's internal revenues for a loan was therefore regarded as involving important political considerations. The fact that the loan was to carry an Imperial guarantee and be secured on the internal revenues made it of the greatest importance that the United States should participate therein in order that it might be in a position as an interested party to exercise an influence equal to that of any of the other three powers in any question arising through the pledging of China's national resources and to enable the United States, moreover, at the proper time again to support China in urgent and desirable fiscal administrative reforms, such as the abolition of likin, the revision of the customs tariff, and general fiscal and momentary rehabilitation.

II. The Manchurian Railways

As is well known, the essential principles of the Hay policy of the open door are the preservation of the territorial and jurisdictional integrity of the Chinese Empire and equal commercial opportunity in China for all nations. The United States Government believed that one of the most effective, if not the most effective way to secure for China the undisturbed enjoyment of all political rights in Manchuria and to promote the normal development of the Eastern Provinces under the policy of the open door practically applied, would be to take the railroads of Manchuria out of Eastern politics and place them under an economic and impartial administration by vesting in China the present ownership as well as the reversion of its railroads; the funds for that purpose to be furnished by the nationals of such interested powers as might be willing to participate and who were pledged to the policy of the open door and equal opportunity; the powers participating to operate the railway system during the period of the loan, and enjoy the usual preferences in supplying materials.

Such a policy would naturally require for its execution the cooperation, not only of China, but also of Japan and of Russia, who already had extensive railway rights in Manchuria. The advantages of such a plan were obvious. It would insure unimpaired Chinese sovereignty, the commercial and industrial development of the Manchurian provinces, and furnish a substantial reason for the early solution of the problems of fiscal and monetary reform which are now receiving such earnest attention by the Chinese Government. It would afford an opportunity for both Russia and Japan to shift their onerous duties, responsibilities and expenses in connection with these railways to the shoulders of the combined powers, including themselves. Such a policy, moreover, would effect a complete commercial neutralization of Manchuria, and in so doing make a large contribution to the peace of the world by converting the provinces of Manchuria into an immense commercial neutral zone.

The signature of an ad referendum agreement between a representative of the Chinese Government and the financial representatives of the United States and Great Britain to finance and construct a railway line from Chinchow to Aigun gave the United States an opportunity to lay this proposal before the Government of Great Britain for its consideration, and the project received the approval in principle of that GovernGermany and China cordially approved the American suggestion. Japan and Russia found the proposal unacceptable in its wider scope. The alternative proposition is still under consideration by the respective Governments concerned.

THE SIXTEENTH ANNUAL LAKE MOHONK CONFERENCE ON INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION

The sixteenth annual meeting of this conference, which was held at Mohonk Lake, N. Y., May 18th, 19th and 20th, is likely to be remembered as the most significant of the long series of these unique gatherings. Former meetings have equalled it in the number and prominence of their participants; but none has possessed so many of the attributes that make an assembly an accurate index of public opinion. Among the three hundred persons present were representatives not only of every phase of the peace movement but of practically every important calling. The Business Committee which presented the platform consisted of three judges, four lawyers, three educators, two editors, three business men, & national commissioner of labor, a brigadier-general, a rear-admiral, s

member of the State Department, an expert in Pan-American affairs, two clergymen and the representatives of three peace and arbitration societies; and all these classes and others were heard on the floor of the conference. Eight nationalities were in evidence, London, Paris, Berne, Christiana, Tokio, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, and most of the large cities of the United States from Los Angeles on the west to Jacksonville on the the south and Portland, Maine, on the east, being represented. It was a cosmopolitan gathering; and its discussions were equally representative. Conditions in the Far East and in South America; the relation to arbitration of churches, colleges, commerce and labor; limitation of armaments; the duty of the United States in the peace movement, these and other topics were freely brought forward, and all received a sympathetic hearing. But the dominant note of the conference-starting with the opening remarks of Albert K. Smiley, the host, permeating almost every address and finally becoming part of the platform-found its fullest expression when the Solicitor for the Department of State closed his address with these words:

The Secretary of State, the Honorable Philander C. Knox, authorizes and directs me to say officially that the responses to the identic circular note (of October 18, 1909) have been so favorable and manifest such a willingness and desire on the part of the leading nations to constitute a Court of Arbitral Justice, that he believes a truly permanent court of Arbitral Justice, composed of judges acting under a sense of judicial responsibility, representing the various judicial systems of the world and capable of insuring the continuity of arbitral jurisprudence, will be established in the immediate future and that the Third Peace Conference will find it in successful operation at The Hague.

It will be remembered that as early as 1896 and for four successive years the Mohonk Conference inserted in its platform an appeal for the establishment of an international court, and that this subject and the negotiation of treaties of arbitration have been the leading themes at all of its meetings. Last year, the platform particularly urged the United States Government to take the initiative in promoting the establishment of the international court of arbitral justice. It was, therefore, with peculiar satisfaction and appreciation that the meeting received this message from the Secretary of State. The feeling of the Conference and the spirit of its discussions is well expressed in the platform adopted, which is as follows:

The Sixteenth Annual Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration congratulates the people of the United States on the marked progress which the past year has witnessed in the age-long struggle for the substitution of the reign of law for the reign of force in international affairs. It notes with deep satis

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