ROOSEVELT ON PEACE

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2092, 29 May 1907, Page 4

ROOSEVELT ON PEACE

LETTER TO CARNEGIE.

A recent letter from Mr. Roosevelt to Mr. Carnegie, in rejily to an invitation that tho President should attend the American Peaco Congress, contains the following:—“Our representatives will go to tho second peace conference at Tho Hague instructed to help in every practical way to bring some steps nearer completion the great work which the first conference,began. It is idle to expect that a task so tremendous can be settled by one or tup conferences. Jt is not possible that the conference should go more than a certain distance further fir the right directio 1. Yet I believe that it can make real progress on the road toward international justice, peace, and fair dealing. One of the questions, although not to my mind one of the most important, which will be brought before the conference will be that of the limitation of armaments. • The United, States, owing to its peculiar position, has a regular army so small as to bo infinitesimal when compared to that of any of the first-class powers. "NYe are no longer enlarging our navy; we are simply keeping up its strength, very moderate, indeed, when compared with our wealth, population, and coast lino; for the addition of one battleship a year barely enables us to make good the units which become obsolete. The most practicable step in diminishing the burden of expense, caused by the increasing size of naval armaments would, I believe, be

an agreement to limit tho sizo of all j ships hordaitor to bo built, but hith■trtd it has not proved possible to got . Libor nations to iigroo with us on this point. • ; * Moro important than reducing tho oxpenso of tho implements of war is Ibo question of reducing tho possiblo cii uso of war, which can more olfoctimllv bo done by substituting otlioi methods than war for tho settlement of disputes. Of those other methods the most important which is now attainable is arbitration. I do not boliovo that with tho world as it actually is, it is possiblo for- any nation to; agree to arbitrate all difficulties which may arise between itself and other nations, but I do believe that there can bo at this timo a very largo j incroaso-in the classos of cases which j it is agreed shall bo arbitrated, and ; that provision can bo mado for- great- j or facility and certainty of arbitra- ! tion. I hope to sod adopted a gonoral arbitration treaty among tho nations, and I liopo to see tho Hague court groatly increased in power and permanency, and the judges in particular mado permanent mid given adequate salaries so as to make it increasingly probable that in each case that may come before them they will decide between tho nations, great or small, exactly as a judge within our own limits decides between the individuals. Doubtless many other matters will be taken up at The Haguo; but it sooms to mo that this matter of a general arbitration treaty is perhaps tho most important.—Sincere]}’ yours, THEODORE ROOSEVELT.”