The relationship of the two problems is rather the reverse. To a great extent disarmament is dependent on guarantees of peace. Security comes first and disarmament second.

The following year, after I had prepared my draft, the Conference of the Interparliamentary Union at The Hague decided to set up a special commission to study the problem seriously.

I am convinced that when the history of international law comes to be written centuries hence, it will be divided into two periods: the first being from the earliest times to the end of the nineteenth century, and the second beginning with the Hague Conference.

So long as peace is not attained by law (so argue the advocates of armaments) the military protection of a country must not be undermined, and until such is the case disarmament is impossible.

Some pacifists have carried the sound idea of the prime importance of security too far, to the point of declaring that any consideration of disarmament is superfluous and pointless as long as eternal peace has not been attained.

Disarmament or limitation of armaments, which depends on the progress made on security, also contributes to the maintenance of peace.

Pacifist propaganda and the resolutions of the parliamentarians encouraged such treaties, and toward the end of the nineteenth century their number had increased considerably.