ambitions the foundation is laid for permaneni world peace. The world's wars are chiefly due to misunderstanding. It was an ominous fact that during the Morocco crisis of 1911 the foreign ministers of England, France, and Germany were unacquainted with each other and with each other's countries. The first duty of a European foreign minister, one would say, is to travel and know personally the men with whom he deals, when the prosperity of millions of his fellows is at stake.

The first World's Congress of International Associations was held at Brussels, May 9 to II, 1910. At this Congress 132 out of a total of some 200 associations related to the Central Bureau movement were represented. It was the first step toward a general co-ordination of all unofficial international activities. At this Congress there were present four Nobel peace laureates, including Auguste Beernaert, who presided over the deliberations. In one of the reports of the proceedings occurs the following definition of internationalism:

Internationalism of interests and efforts is only the continuation of the great movement which has already created in history regionalism and nationalism. Among the independent nations-which ought to survive, as provinces survive within states-there has been progressively developed a vast organisation destined to embrace all states and nationalities.

It is to Senator Henri La Fontaine of Belgium,

President of the International Peace Bureau, with headquarters at Berne, that the world chiefly owes a debt for the laborious compilations and the mass of material which make the Bureau at Brussels an invaluable clearing-house of information for the expert and a powerful factor for the promotion of good-will and justice between nations.

In the marble palace of the Pan-American Union in Washington is splendidly housed an organisation devoted to the development of peace, friendship, and commerce between the twenty-one republics of the western hemisphere. It is the creature of the four International Conferences held in Washington, Mexico, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires, between 1889 and 1910. This union is thus far a voluntary organisation, existing by common consent and co-operation, which focuses here the various political, social, and commercial interests of one hundred and sixty millions of people who occupy an area three times as great as Europe.

It is difficult for us of English descent, proud of an inheritance of many centuries of parliaments, to realise that the young American republics, which less than a century ago threw off the yoke of Spain, are subjects for very serious consideration. Our solicitude and help in the time of the Holy Alliance have singularly enough not been continued by great commercial interchange or intelligent appreciation. Not until Secretary Root's notable

tour around the southern continent did we open our eyes to realise the potentialities and progress of Latin America. Our press and our business men had grossly neglected it, leaving rich markets for the clever German while we went far over seas and spent hundreds of millions of dollars in Asiatic possessions in hope thereby of winning trade with the impoverished Orient, whereas our trade is in no wise dependent on our owning any land beyond San Francisco. We have entered now upon a new era, and are no longer astounded at pictures of noble edifices in Uruguay or Costa Rica, of miles of shipping and grain elevators in Buenos Aires, and cathedrals and opera-houses that equal any which our rich land can boast. We are beginning to comprehend that revolution is no longer in most southern republics the order of the day, and that for fifteen years, at least two thirds of these republics have had none of any consequence. We have discovered the necessity of sending a different type of American to deal with these more courteous and somewhat suspicious people to the south-drummers who know the language, who carry schedules and send bills of lading in the tongue and coinage of the country, who leave behind them brusqueness and "hustle, and learn to give credits and have patience. We are now sending consuls who do not disgrace us and are showing ourselves more appreciative and friendly. Not a little of this recent change has been due to the enthusiasm of Mr. John Barrett,

View through the Arches, Showing Section of Patio of the New Building of the International Bureau of the American Republics at Washington.

(Courtesy of Hamilton Holt, Esq.)