It is not a little surprising—when we consider the great and rapid advance that has been made during the last century in diplomacy, jurisprudence, statesmanship, and political economy, and, indeed, in the multifarious branches of knowledge,—that international relations, upon which depend to such an extent the most precious interests of the nations and of all mankind, should remain so long in a condition very crude, indefinite, and incomplete. The “mills of God grind slowly,” but the mills of human government seem even more tedious and rusty. Now that, in the advance of intelligence and civilization, the nations have passed from the self-subsistent stage of national life into the dependent one; now that, through the great discoveries of modern times, the nations have been brought together, compacted into one community, and the interests of all have been blended; now that “the separate threads of national prosperity have been entangled in the international skein,” publicists have found it necessary to enlarge their opinions and judgments, so as to represent, not the narrowness of local prejudice, but the breadth and depth of the whole mind of civilized mankind. This tendency has found practical expression in international treaties, with objects neither sectarian nor political; concerning not individuals alone, not nations alone, but the whole community of man. With aims the most comprehensive, desirableness and practicability manifest, they are founded in a philanthropy seeking to promote the honor and welfare of every nation, and to bring additional blessings to every home and every heart in the wide world. International unions, with their noble and beneficent objects, constitute the fellowship of nations, under the dominion of law, in the bonds of peace. Central bureaus are required for the management of these unions, and it needed but little reflection to discover that the Swiss republic presented peculiar advantages for their location. Its neutrality stood guaranteed by the powers; it could not come under any suspicion of political ambition or territorial aggrandizement; it was thus mapped out to be a neutral state, with every reasonable prospect of this status being sustained. This neutrality, with its strong assurance of immunity from “all entangling alliances” and the untoward complications of war or foreign occupation, and the central position in Europe with convenience of communication with the principal European capitals, were in themselves sufficient to recommend Switzerland. Then the Swiss possess perhaps the most marked genius of any people for the administration of an office; the government itself is surely the most laborious, the most economical, the least pretentious, yet withal systematic, thorough, and efficient; the same sobriety of demeanor, conscientious discharge of duty, with painstaking, patient labor at their desks, pervade the entire Swiss bureaucracy; these were distinct and all-important advantages. And, last, the supposition that affairs which influence the conduct and affect the interests of nations might be discussed amid its mountains with a calmness and candor which the contemplation of nature inspires, contributed no little to the cheerful consensus as to the propriety of its selection for the seat of the bureaus. There are now a sufficient number of these unions, with their central bureaus or seats established in Bern, to confer upon the Confederation a singularly conspicuous position of distinction and usefulness. Uncontaminated by the ambitions of its neighbors, Switzerland offers to contending nations a quiet spot in which to settle their disputes by the peaceful means of arbitration. It is not only a place of occasional conventions, but also the official headquarters of a host of continuous international agreements, commercial treaties and unions, which render peace and freedom necessary, and therefore secure within its borders.

The first step from which resulted the concentration of these bureaus in Switzerland was taken in 1863. In that year a private committee, composed of different nationalities but animated by one noble impulse, assembled at Geneva to consider the practicability of making some better provision for the protection of the wounded in battle, the inadequacy of existing official means to meet the humane requirements of the sick and wounded soldiers in great wars having long been painfully apparent. It will always redound to the honor of Switzerland that upon its soil the first formal international conference was held with a view to the mitigation of some of the horrors of war. On that occasion the institution of national aid societies was organized, and a few Swiss gentlemen were formed into an international committee for the purpose of constituting, on their neutral territory, an intermediary for the aid of similar societies in all countries. This committee soon discovered that their movement was everywhere attracting the attention and winning the warm approbation of all humane people, and determined to place it upon a broader and firmer basis. They requested the Swiss Federal Council to propose to such other governments, as it deemed expedient, that a diplomatic conference should be held in Switzerland, to discuss and, if possible, give the undertaking international character and support. The Federal Council promptly acceded to the memorial of the committee, and the invitation, as desired, was officially extended in the name of the Swiss government. Many of the leading powers accepted the invitation, and accredited delegates to the conference, which assembled the following year in Geneva. This conference was brought to a successful conclusion by the signing of the memorable “Geneva Convention of August 20, 1864,” by the representatives of sixteen governments. Within four months it was ratified and formally acceded to by eight European states, and at the present date has been joined by a grand total of thirty-three states. This convention embraces a wide field of practical philanthropy, being designed to remove soldiers when sick or wounded from the category of combatants, affording them relief and protection without regard to nationality. This protection extends to all persons officially attached to hospitals or ambulances, and to all houses so long as they contain invalid soldiers. Inhabitants of a locality occupied by a belligerent army, and who are engaged in the care of the sick and wounded, are likewise included; provision is also to be made for the return of invalid soldiers to their respective homes. “While the gun-carriage bears its death-dealing burden across the battle-field, in the ruts which rushing artillery wheels have torn up follow quickly the ambulance wagons of this Christian brotherhood, bringing hope and succor to the wounded.” The insignia of hospital and ambulance is the Swiss flag, with its colors reversed, a red cross on a white ground; and individuals in their employment wear a white armlet with a red cross, and every red-cross flag must be accompanied, in time of war, by the national flag of those using it. It is no mean distinction for the Swiss Confederation that its national emblem is so intimately and exclusively associated with this great exhibition of international humanity. It is a grand and elevating education, a wise and philanthropic conception embodying the best principles of social science, and that true spirit of charity which counts it a sacred privilege to minister to one’s fellow-men in time of suffering. To supply material wants, great as this may be, is not all of its mission; it seeks to carry to men’s hearts the message of universal brotherhood, with “peace on earth, good will to men” as its ensign. The United States gave their adhesion to this convention in 1882, and in the conferences had since that date, among the large number of delegates assembled, composed of royalties, nobilities, military and scientific celebrities, no one commanded more respectful attention or contributed more to the deliberations than a lone feminine delegate who bore the credentials of the United States. The name of Clara Barton is known the world over in connection with the burning cross on a snow-white field. To her labors are largely due the widening of the scope of the red-cross activities, and the assimilation of its workings to the advance plans already put in execution in her own country. These plans were chiefly of her own suggestion, and she had been instrumental in their reduction to successful use, for which she found opportunity in the late civil war, and subsequently during the Franco-German war, when she followed the German army into Paris, working faithfully alike in French and German camp; when all the nations of Europe rang with praises for her splendid work. She then first became acquainted with the Red Cross Society, and at once united with it; returning home with the iron cross of Baden on her breast, she organized the Red Cross Society of the United States, and was made its president. Her influence mainly contributed to the favorable action of the United States in joining this convention in 1882.

In 1865, one year after the conclusion of the Red Cross Convention, occurred the initiative of the International Telegraph Union upon the signature of the Convention of Paris. For a time the Union dispensed with a central administration, and at the conference held in Vienna in 1865 the policy of having a shifting administration, as between the capitals where the conferences took place, was seriously considered, but the necessity for a fixed and central administration was finally conceded, and the Swiss Confederation was asked to take charge of it. The central office was organized without delay at Bern. Correspondence was opened with thirty-seven telegraphic administrations, twenty-six of which belonged to the contracting states and eleven to private corporations. The last report from the bureau-director shows the number of state administrations corresponding with the central office to be forty; in addition to these are ten cable or submarine companies and eleven private land companies. The budget for 1888 reports the total expense of this bureau at 84,000 francs, or about $16,500, an incredibly small outlay for so important and responsible a work, involving an extensive line of correspondence and at times the adjustment of very technical questions. The bureau issues an official gazette, Le Journal Télégraphique. To this union the United States do not belong, having no government control over the telegraph companies.

Next came the Postal Union in 1874, and immediately upon the exchange of ratifications of the convention a year later the central office was likewise organized at Bern. Correspondence opened with twenty-one postal administrations, which have now increased to forty-seven; the annual budget is $15,700, making the contributive share of a first-class state only a little over $600 per annum, and about half that sum for a second-class state; certainly a very inconsiderable tax for so essential a service. The chiefs or directors of the two above-mentioned unions possess administrative ability that would readily command in the United States three times the sums paid them. A journal, L’Union Postale, published monthly, in three languages, English, German, and French, is conducted by the bureau, and enjoys a large circulation among those interested in knowing something of this clearing-house process of international mail-matter.

Passing mention may be made of two more limited but very useful conventions concluded in Switzerland,—one for the extermination of phylloxera and the other for the regulation of the transportation of goods by railway. The first had its origin at a conference of persons interested in the culture of the vine, held at Lausanne in 1877, and a convention to establish a union was signed at Bern in 1878 by several states, with the object of promoting joint protection against a disease which had caused such serious losses to vine-growers. Bern was agreed upon as the seat of all future meetings, and this union, which continues to obtain adhesions, is in active and beneficial operation. The Railway Transportation Union is, from the very nature and difficulty of the matters involved, one of slow evolution, but conferences are from time to time held, and its friends do not despair that it will ultimately result in the text of an international union with its bureau at Bern; this union, however, cannot expect to embrace any but the continental states.

A most important event in the history of these unions was the conclusion, at Paris, in 1883, after ten years’ negotiation, of the Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, with a supplemental protocol signed at Rome in 1886. By the terms of the convention Switzerland assumed the responsibility for the management of the central administration, and the bureau joined the others at Bern. There are sixteen states in this union, the last accession being that of the United States, which was made on the 30th of May, 1887.

Lastly, and one very properly following close on that for the protection of industrial property, came the Union for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Property. This, the result of conferences in 1884, 1885, and 1886 at Bern, was secured by the signature of the convention on the 9th of September, 1886, and the ratification exchanged 5th of December, 1887, with ten adhering states. The central bureau, like those preceding it, was placed under the high authority of the Swiss Confederation, and is consolidated with its sister Bureau of Industrial Property. It issues an ably edited monthly journal, Le Droit d’Auteur.

The failure of the United States to adhere to this convention, it was apprehended by many, would deprive the Union of much of its contemplated value and practical results. This sentiment found expression in terms of the most sincere and respectful regret on the part of the delegates representing the signing states. At the Bern Conference of 1886, to which the writer was commissioned as a consultative delegate, he submitted the following statement explanatory of the attitude of the United States towards the conference:

“Through a circular note of the Swiss Federal Council the United States have been invited, in concert with the other powers represented in the Copyright Conference held here in September, 1885, to instruct and empower a delegate to attend this conference, and to sign on behalf of the United States the International Convention for the General Protection of Literary and Artistic Property, drafted ad referendum by the conference last year, and a copy of which draft convention, with additional article and protocole de clôture, had been submitted to them. The United States again find it impracticable to depute a delegate plenipotentiary, and are constrained to withhold from any formal participation, as a signatory to the International Convention which resulted from the deliberations of 1885, and the transformation of that convention into a complete diplomatic engagement. To exhibit their benevolence, however, towards the principle involved, the United States desire, with, the pleasure of this conference, to be represented here, and has conferred upon me the honor to attend this conference as such representative, provided that my attendance is fully recognized and admitted to be without plenipotentiary powers; but under the limitation and reservation that the United States, not being a party to the proposed convention, reserve their privilege of future accession, under provisions of Article XVIII. thereof, which declare that ‘countries which have not joined in the present convention, and which by their municipal laws assure legal protection to the right whereof this convention treats, shall be admitted to accede thereto on their request to that effect.’ While not prepared to join in the proposed convention as a full signatory, the United States do not wish thereby to be understood as opposing the measure in any way, but, on the contrary, desire to reserve without prejudice the privilege of future accession, should it become expedient and practicable to do so. Should any question exist that the representation of the United States here, though under the specific and express limitation of a consultative delegate, is such a participation as would suffice to exclude them from the category of the ‘countries that had not joined in the present convention,’ and therefore to deprive them of the privilege of future accession, in event they desire to avail themselves of it, I wish to reiterate and emphasize the fact, that the course of the United States in commissioning a delegate is in nowise intended or to be construed as a participation in the result of the conference, either by acceptance or rejection. The position and attitude of the United States is one simply of expectancy and reserve. The Constitution of the United States enumerates among the powers especially reserved to Congress, that ‘to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing for limited terms to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;’ which implies that the origination and limitation of measures to those ends rest with the legislative rather than the treaty-making powers. Copyright and patents are on the same footing of regulation by federal legislation, and the executive branch of the government cannot be unmindful of the continued pendency of its consideration by the legislative department, or disregard the constitutional right of that department to conclude international treaties on this important subject. The question of international copyright is one of great interest to the United States. In fact, few other countries can lay claim to greater concern than that naturally felt by people distinguished for enlightened, extensive, and growing intellectual life, and while not infringing upon the constitutional prerogative of Congress to initiate and conclude copyright legislation, likewise to define the rights of aliens and citizens within its jurisdiction, the Executive, in his first annual message to Congress, inviting its attention to the conference of last September, said, ‘action is certainly desirable to effect the object in view;’ and the Secretary of State for foreign affairs, in his official despatches relating to this conference, freely expresses his concurrence with the principle sought to be enunciated by the proposed convention, and conveys the hope that the time is not distant when rights of property in the creation of the mind may be universally secured under conditions favorable alike to the author and to the world’s right to share in the diffusion of ideas. That the brain that creates is entitled to and should receive its just and full compensation, is a sentiment having its origin in the inherent sense of honesty. Literary property has been to some extent recognized in all ages, and is to-day guaranteed in almost every State by domestic legislation. This recognition and guarantee should be without distinction of nationality and without regard to political frontiers. It is a matter of congratulation, and redounds much to the credit of the Swiss government, through whose active efforts this movement was successfully inaugurated, and supplemented by the patient and intelligent labor of the several conferences assembled here at its invitation, that a just and permanent settlement, once for all, of the grave question of the protection of works of literature and art, so long and unjustly denied, is about to be realized by the instrumentality of a uniform, efficacious, and equitable international convention.”

At the close of these remarks the president of the conference thanked the delegate from the United States, and assured him that the “accession of the United States would be received at any time with joy by all the contracting states, and he but reflected the sincere wish of all present in hoping that within a measurable time the United States will request that a place be made for them in the Union.”

It is time that the position of the United States on this important subject should be set free from the thraldom of that short-sighted selfishness which has hitherto fettered and degraded it. The Congress of the United States should seek suggestion from those sentiments of elevated justice and public honesty which are the sources of judicial counsel, and should act in that spirit of permanent and comprehensive wisdom, justice, and right which alone gives assurances of deep and expanding benefits, as well to nations as to individuals. In the absence of international copyright, just and fair compensation for native literary and artistic property is out of the question. American authors ask no protection, they demand no aids, no bounties; they simply ask not to be subjected to this discrimination against domestic talent that puts them at a cruel disadvantage with foreign competitors, the fatal usage of whose cheap reprints, “without authorial expenses,” has become an inveterate and crushing system. They ask only the privilege of meeting these competitors on equal terms in a fair contest. Literary property is the only kind of personal property not protected by the law when the owner is not a citizen of the United States. To the foreign owners of patents and trade-marks, which are so analogous to copyright, protection ample and easily enforced is accorded. It is half a century since Prussia first set the example of granting international copyright. In 1837 a law was passed that every country might secure copyright for its authors in Prussia upon granting reciprocity. This was followed by England in the succeeding year. France set the example, during the Empire, of forbidding the piracy of books and works of art of foreigners, before obtaining reciprocity. Property in ideas, dating back in England to the Statutes of Anne, was recognized in the Constitution of the United States, and is now conceded in every civilized country by legislative enactment. The same legal protection in the matter of ideas which is given to the natives of the state, is now accorded to the foreigner and outsider by all nations of high civilization except the United States. The right to profit by the product of the brain should secure for the author “that justice which is not a matter of climates and degrees.” The principle of copyright being admitted, it cannot logically be confined to state lines or national boundaries. Grant that it is difficult to give literary rights the well-defined nature and tangible form of what is known, technically, as real or personal property; still, outside of the ethical or abstract right, copyright is a modern development of the principle of property which commends itself to every sentiment of honor and justice, regardless of any obscurity which may have surrounded or inspired its conception. Who steals a man’s book may, indeed, steal trash, but, at least, it is his own trash, more closely his own than his purse. In a high state of civilization, a man’s book should be everywhere regarded as his property, and should ever be protected as scrupulously as if it were a pair of shoes, upon the construction of which he has also expended his time, his thought, his patience, and such talent and skill as he possesses. The sophistical plea that the culture and education of our people are to be imperilled, and the cost of books to be placed beyond the reach of the masses, is the mere weak subterfuge of those who are unwilling to be disturbed in their wrongful appropriation of the labor of others. The reverse of this claim has been abundantly shown. France has had an international copyright law for years, and series of books are issued there for five cents, and even two cents a number; it is the same with Germany; and these cheap publications represent all that is best in the literature of their respective countries. The spirit of literary ambition and activity is daily becoming greater and more diffused among the people of the United States, quickening and nourishing into life the seeds of a vigorous and vast native literature. It is impossible to determine the elements which must conspire to form and build up a native literature. It is a mystery, not solved to the satisfaction of scholars, why it should have put forth so early and transitory a bloom in Italy; why it should have ripened so late in Germany and Scotland; why in England alone it should know no vicissitudes of seasons, but smile in eternal spring. But we may be confidently assured that a people to whom Providence has given a stirring history, a land abounding in landscapes of beauty and grandeur, and a high degree of mental activity, extending the range of knowledge and scattering its seeds among all classes without price, cannot and will not remain long without an extensive and superior native literature. The literature of a people is the noblest emanation and truest measure of the intellect and earnestness and progression of that community. But there can be no decided literature, national in its basis, original in its character, independent in its aim, in any country where authorship is not a firm, reliable, and safe possession. Already the peer of the proudest in military achievements and material prosperity, truth, freedom, and civilization never presented a richer field and a brighter future for intellectual laborers than is to be found in the United States. Inexhaustible materials sleep in the womb of the morning, awaiting the forming hand of letters to seize and vitalize these mighty elements. The day must come when the pre-eminence of the United States in the field of material products will be rivalled by the existence of a literature as aspiring, as copious, and as brilliant as the spirit, resources, and destiny of the country; an American literature, breathing American ideas, and teaching respect and admiration for American government, furnishing to the young men and women of an impressionable age books which are American books, not foreign books; not the cheap books of fiction dedicated, as Matthew Arnold has said, to the “Goddess of Lubricity.”115

The international unions, indicated as having their seats in Bern, it must not be forgotten, are practically the only ones which the world has to show. The Bureau du Mètre in France, the only cognate institution in another country partaking of an international character, cannot be reckoned in the same class, being scientific and not commercial. It is noteworthy, as evidence of the high consideration given to these international unions, or rather to the location of their central bureaus in Switzerland, by its statesmen, that the directorship of the Postal Bureau was on its establishment accepted by an eminent member of the Federal Council, who thus voluntarily surrendered virtually a life-tenure position of the highest dignity, coupled with the certainty of succeeding to the Presidency of the Confederation, to assume a more laborious and responsible post, with little, if any, increase of salary. The acquisition by Switzerland of these important bureaus, with the world-wide scope of their operation, is properly regarded as forming a more effectual guarantee for its preservation as an independent state than any other that could be devised. These unions cannot fail to be also productive of a progressively improving understanding among all the states composing them, enabling their several systems to be compared, useful discoveries shared, legislation simplified and assimilated, the science of statistics facilitated, and efforts, not merely for the development of commercial, but also of the intellectual needs of their respective people, wisely stimulated and directed. These beneficent consequences must favorably reflect on the state furnishing the safe and common ground upon which this great work can be peaceably and skilfully prosecuted, and elevate it to an exceptional plane of importance and security, giving it an international function which is interesting to note. It will not do, in connection with these international bodies and episodes in Swiss history, to omit reference to the fact that the first great international court of arbitration of modern times had its sessions in Geneva, in 1872, by virtue of the Treaty of Washington between Great Britain and the United States to arbitrate what was known as the “Alabama Claims.” Over this most memorable court a distinguished citizen of Switzerland was chosen to preside. It was such an imposing spectacle, and the results were so important, as to give an old process a new dignity and reputation; and to awaken a fresh interest in the project of a permanent international high court of arbitration. To this project the Swiss Federal Council has been frequently addressed to lend its kindly offices. It is a project that every philanthropic publicist would be happy to see made practicable. Insurmountable difficulties seem to interpose, yet the fact of great states submitting their disputes to a body of impartial arbitrators for decision, and not the arbitrament of war, is not a new one, but of very ancient origin, old as history. As a principle, it has received the approval of sovereigns and statesmen, parliaments and congresses. The chief powers of Europe gave their sanction to it by the Treaty of Paris in 1856, and the government of the United States has, upon more than one occasion, given approval to it as the means of settling international controversy.116 Barbarians and early people fought because they liked it, as the chivalrous Maoris did, and the Mussulmans, and the ancient Greeks. The romance and poetry of these people are all about war; it was their sport, their industry, their occupation; there was no other way to wealth and the heart of woman. Even the ancient Teutones regarded war as a great international lawsuit, and victory was the judgment of God in favor of the victor. Civilized people fight because they cannot help it, not because they like it. Civilized nations of to-day are supposed to act from motives of justice and humanity, and not upon calculations of profit, or ambition, or in the wantonness of mere caprice. Nations are now regarded as moral persons, bound so to act as to do each other the least injury and the most good. There is a growing international consciousness that, considered in the abstract, unconnected with all views of the causes for which it may be undertaken, war is an evil, and that it should yield to some plan of adjusting international quarrels more consonant with the present boasted Christian civilization. War, it is true, has its great conquests, its pomps, its proud associations, and heroic memories, yet there is murder in its march, and humanity and civilization, genius and statesmanship, are things to blush for if they fail to realize that

and that these words convey a profound principle, and not merely an abstraction too refined to be reduced to practice.

The trend of events is towards a peaceable settlement of international differences. National temperaments are being levelled by the ease of intercourse. The world is more and more assimilating to a condition like that of a great family, in which the individual nations, as members, are linked together by interests, which disputes ending in wars only impair and cannot benefit. The principle in early Roman law was that every stranger is a public enemy. The opposite prevails to-day with civilized peoples, that the normal relation between nations is one of peace and friendship. Unconquerable time itself works on increasingly, bringing the nations nearer to one another in the natural and orderly development of close international intercourse, strengthening the community of mankind. A deep meaning and philosophic truth is contained in the words of Vattel, “International justice is the daughter of economic calculations.” These international unions are most powerful auxiliaries in removing the hinderances that lie between nations; through them the lesson is being objectively taught that great nations are so dependent upon each other, that any disturbance in a particular one is felt by the others, and that when their friendly relations are interrupted, the civilized world suffers. Through this influence nations are beginning to take a wider view of their mutual duties and relations, and appeal to reason and conscience in international dealings finds a response and an application which could not have been expected earlier. These unions generate a spirit that turns its regard to the circuit of the globe, and to an inspiration in which international relations obtain a higher form and a more assured security, with no purpose to interfere with particular states or their complete autonomous organism, or to oppress nations, but the better to secure the peace of the one and the freedom of the other. The best human arrangements cannot completely insure the world against civil war. This ideal can be only approximated. It would be vain to look for a political millennium, for a time when the “only battle-field will be the market open to commerce and the mind open to new ideas,” when nations shall enjoy the boundless blessings offered them in the perfect freedom of human industry and in the reign of a perpetual peace,—

The latest movement, on the part of Switzerland, in the inauguration of international legislation, relates to “international law” and the “interest of the working-classes.” The former was organized, in 1888, at Lausanne, the seat of the Swiss Federal Tribunal, and formed the “Institute of International Law;” the subjects discussed comprised the common features of the conflict of civil laws; the conflict of the laws relative to marriage and divorce; joint stock companies; encounters at sea; extradition; occupation of unclaimed territory, according to provisions of the Treaty of Berlin; international regulation of railways, telegraphs, and telephones in time of war; and the manner and limit of expulsion of strangers from the territory by governments. The second, relating to the “interest of the working-classes,” was foreshadowed by an article from the pen of M. Numa Droz, the chief of the Foreign Department in the Swiss Cabinet, and published in the Revue Suisse of February, 1889. In this article M. Droz announced that Switzerland was about to invite the other nations of Europe to a congress, in which projects for improving the condition of the laboring classes of Europe would be discussed. He expressed his confidence that only good could come from such an official gathering, and stated that Switzerland would consider it “as a great source of pleasure to offer cordial hospitality to the first European conference in the interest of labor legislation.” The distinguished and official authorship of this article caused it to attract much attention, and it received very favorable comment from the continental press. As indicated by M. Droz, within a short time after the appearance of his article, the Swiss Federal Council issued an invitation to the European manufacturing states to send representatives to a conference in September, 1889, at Bern, to consider the “well-being of the working-classes,” and the organization of an “International Labor Congress.” At the same time it suggested the following questions for consideration: Prohibition of Sunday work; fixing of a minimum age for the employment of children in factories, and a limitation of working-hours for young people; prohibition of the employment of minors and women in peculiarly unhealthy or dangerous industries; limitation of night-work; the adoption of a settled plan for the attainment of these objects. The second annual session of this conference was recently held at Berlin, by the invitation of the Emperor, who recognized that he could no longer depend on the army to repress industrial discontent. Should these conferences succeed in ameliorating the condition of the laboring classes throughout Europe, and thus lift from those countries the darkest and most angry cloud that now hangs over them, it will be the brightest jewel in the crown of Switzerland’s hegemony in the great work of international unions.

It can no longer be denied that it is possible to unite the whole globe in such organizations, now that international law, with its hypothesis of the union of many states in one humanity, extends over the greater part of the inhabited earth. There is a steadily-increasing interdependence of the nations of the world, especially of those which give themselves to commerce and manufactures, and alike of those which need a foreign field for a share of their capital. These ties unite them alike for good and evil, and render the prosperity of each dependent on the equal prosperity of all the rest. When this great truth is well understood, it may, perhaps, become the peacemaker of the world. Nations have their defects and passions like individuals, and well-established international laws, conventions, and unions are necessary to protect the weak and helpless from the strong and ambitious.