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Show 299 EIGHTH SESSION NEXT STEPS IN PEACEMAKING Tuesday Evening, May 4, at 8 o'clock not connected with the building of battleships, and for reasons sufficient unto ourselves the third address is to be given first and the first address is to be given third. I have pleasure in presenting Mr. Edwin D. Mead, of B05ton, who will speak on "The Arrest in Competitive Arming in Fidelity to The Hague Movement." ORCIiEs'rRA HALL PRESIDENT DAVID STARR JORDAN, of California, Presiding if m! \t\\\\it\i\\t\\ DR. JoRnAx: we meet tonight to discuss the next steps in p‘acemakinv, and we can be very sure that those next steps are not preparin: for war. The old idea that "in time of peace one should treat ready for the next fight" does not belong to our civilizatiZn. (Applause) I have been told that a great navy of Dreadnoughts great battleships, are the best guarantee of peace. It seems to me that if we have no better guarantee of peace than those orreat ships, we are very hard up at this time, (Applause) I d: not think that we need spend any money to amount to anything in prepariiigior anything that may come to us by way of attacks from outside countries, but if it should be necessary I feel very sure-l haven‘t worked it out entirely, but I feel very sure that for the cost of a single Dreadnought we could insure in the insurIanteIcompanieiof England, Germany and France all our sea- )oart towns. 1 nd if those tow 1" ' ' tninly Europe would let us alone‘.b ""9 Pald for m Europe, cerl have never been able to see whv warsl iips were needed in the Atlantic, when there is no possibili-tv in any way, Outside perhaps . of the ' Mediterrane . an, of there beingr any occasion for the police use or ships. The lanes across to linqland are as safe as the streets of an ordinary city. it is proposed to line them on each side with advertising floats, Jardinelli's chocolate and Fair soap and so forth, If there is any need whatever of battleship}; :1th all, It‘lS not between here and Europe , it is not between our _ i'lLlfl‘k Coast and Japan; but it would be around the outlying is ands.‘ between india and Samoa perhap s, there would be a possrlnhty '_ of there bein" h ireeb ooteis ‘ if ' there were no n preventing it. ' leans Of We have tonight a discussion of possible steps towards peace 298 The Arrest of Armament in Fidelity to the Hague Spirit EDWIN D. M EAD. \Vltll the meeting;r of the First Hague Conference in 1899 there opened a new era in the peace movement and in human history. The reason why that Conference was called was because the Russian government felt, and every government to which its invitation came recognized, that the burden of the world's great armaments, the cost of armed peace. had become so monstrous and intolerable that things could not longer go on as they were; it meant univc a] bankruptcy and ruin. It was expressly to deal with the question of disarmament that the First Hague Conference was called. "A Conference on Disarmament" was what was proposed; that was the first official title, afterwards changed to that of the Peace Conference. It wa< to be, "above all, an inter- national discussion of the most efficacious means of putting a limit to the 1)t‘\><'ttl progressive development of armaments," and the commanding necessity of this limitation was never stated more forcibly than in Count I\Iouravieff‘s circular in 1808. \Ve need to remind ourselves of his memorable words more urgently today than ten years ago: "Financial burdens which are increasing affect public prosperity at its source, The intellectual and physical energies of peoples, as well as labor and capital, are for the most part diverted from their natural application and unproductively consumed. Hundreds of millions are employed in acquiring: frightful engines of destruction, which are considered today as the acme of scientific invention but tomorrow are destined to become valuelcss in consequence of some new discovery in the same domain. National culture, economic progress and the production of wealth are paralyzed or warped in their development. Furthermore, in propor- tion as the armaments of each power increase, they respond less WIWI MIN) ill \" |