M. DE STAAL'S SPEECH. [To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "]
Sra,—With reference to various comments in the Spectator of May 27th on the sentence in M. de Staal's opening speech, "Sans rien sacrifier de nos esperances ulterieures," allow me to point out that an entirely wrong construction has been put upon those words. Speaking as President, M. de Steal sums up the ol,jects of the. Conference. and , says :—" Our special task will be to generalise, to codify the practice of arbitration and mediation to prevent conflicts by pacific means. It is not proposed to enter the region of Utopia. In the work we are about to undertake, we must reckon with what is possible, and not seek to, pursue abstrac- tiona. Without sacrificing anything of our ulterior hopes [that is, of what may be attainable in the future], we must remain in. the domain of reality." And in the latter part of his speech he accentuates the idea once more :—" Since we all recognise that for the present our task, great though it. be, is' liinited." In other words, this is only the beginning of a pro- gressive movement, the dawn of the wished-for reign of peace. It would be idle to deny the possibility that Russia may yet have a card.up her sleeve ; but M. de Steal is a consummate diplomatist of the old type, and even if the context did not show his meanings as clearly as it does, we would still credit him with too much tact and kood sense to make a reservation which, as the Spectator justly points out, must shatter many of the 'hopes conceived for the Peace Conference.—I am,
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