QUOTES
There
is still a great work before us. The advocates of peace are, however, no longer
regarded as idle dreamers, and I trust that I have convinced you that our cause
has, especially of late, made wonderful progress and that we are nearing the goal
of our hopes. The world has passed through a long night of tribulation and suffering,
millions of our fellow creatures have been sacrificed to the demon of war; their
blood has saturated every plain and dyed every ocean. But courage, friends, courage
! The darkness is ending, a new day is dawning, and the future is ours.
It
may be that for a long time some nations will continue to fight each other, but
the example of those nations who prefer arbitration to war, law courts to the
battlefield, must sooner or later influence the belligerent powers and make war
as unpopular as pugilism is now.
Amongst
the advantages which we have contended that nations would reap from entering into
treaties of arbitration are, that when differences arose, the disputants would
have time for reflection, because, while the arbitrators were deliberating, the
passions of the contending parties would cool, and the chances of war be greatly
diminished.
