conforming as they all do to one carefully defined type, may be
productive of much good. They testify to, and may promote, a very widely
spread _entente cordiale_, they enhance the prestige of the tribunal of
The Hague, and they assure the reference to that tribunal of certain
classes of questions which might otherwise give rise to international
complications. Beyond this it would surely be unwise to proceed. It is
beginning to be realised that what are called "general" treaties of
arbitration, by which States would bind themselves beforehand to submit
to external decision questions which might involve high political
issues, will not be made between Powers of the first importance; also,
that such treaties, if made, would be more likely to lead to fresh
misunderstandings than to secure the peaceful settlement of disputed
questions.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
Oxford, November 21 (1904).


_Pars._ 1-3.--The topic of "Commissions of Enquiry," which
occupied Arts. 9-13 of the Convention of 1899 "For the Peaceful
Settlement of International Disputes," is more fully dealt with
in Arts. 9-36 of the Convention as amended in 1907.

_Par._ 4.--The amended Convention, as a whole, is still, like
its predecessor, purely facultative. The Russian proposal to
make resort to arbitration universally obligatory in a list of
specified cases, unless when the "vital interests or national
honour" of States might be involved, though negatived in 1899,
was renewed in 1907, in different forms, by several Powers,