I have taken note of the preliminary inquiry addressed to all the other
governments looking to their acquiescence in the calling of such a
conference by the formal invitation of His Majesty.
[Inclosure.]
memorandum.
Department of State,
Washington, October 12,
1905.
On the 13th of last month, at Sagamore Hill, his excellency the
ambassador of Russia presented to the President a memorandum, being
a message from His Majesty the Tsar to
[Page 830]
the President, to the effect that in view of
the termination, with the cordial cooperation of the President, of
the war, and of the conclusion of peace between Russia and Japan,
His Imperial Majesty, as initiator of the International Peace
Conference of 1899, deems the present a favorable moment for further
developing and systematizing the labors of that conference, and that
to this end, upon being assured in advance of the sympathy of the
President, who last year pronounced himself in favor of such a
project, His Majesty desires to approach the President with a
proposal to the effect that the Government of the United States take
part in a new international conference, which could be called
together at The Hague as soon as favorable replies may be obtained
from all the other states to which a similar proposal is to be
made.
The Secretary of State, by direction of the President, has the honor
to confirm to his excellency the ambassador of Russia the assurances
which the President had the sincere pleasure to give to his
excellency at the time of the presentation of the memorandum of
September 13. The President’s circulars to the powers, partiesto the
acts of The Hague Conference, which the late Secretary of State
communicated to the several signatory states through the American
envoys accredited thereto, dated, respectively, October 21 and
December 16 of last year, have demonstrated the President’s keen
desire that upon a favorable occasion the labors of the First
International Peace Conference might be supplemented and completed
by an accord to be reached by a second conference of the powers. The
suggestion so put forth having been accepted in principle by the
signatories, it only remained for the opportune moment to come for
the powers to agree upon the place and time for their renewed
assemblage in order to perfect the beneficial agreements of the
first conference.
The President most gladly welcomes the offer of His Imperial Majesty
to again take upon himself the initiation of the steps requisite to
convene a Second International Peace Conference, as the necessary
sequence to the first conference, brought about through His
Majesty’s efforts, and in view of the cordial responses to the
President’s suggestion of October, 1904, he doubts not that the
project will meet with complete acceptation and that the result will
be to bring the nations of the earth still more closely together in
their common endeavor to advance the ends of peace.
As respects the further statement of his excellency’s memorandum of
September 13, that, as the late war has given rise to a number of
questions which are of the greatest importance and closely related
to the acts of the first conference, the plenipotentiaries of
Russia, at the future meeting, will lay before the conference a
detailed programme which could serve as a starting point for its
deliberations, the President finds it in consonance with the
indications of his circular of October 21, 1904, touching the
questions to come before a second conference for discussion, and the
importance of completing the work of the first conference by ample
exchange of views and, it is to be hoped, full concord upon the
broad questions specifically relegated by the final act of The Hague
to the consideration of a future conference.
[Continued in Foreign
Relations, 1906.]
