[Untitled]
Washington, February 19, 1909.
To certain diplomatic officers abroad.
Sir: There is now assembled in Washington, in response to the invitation of the President, a conference of representatives of the United States of Mexico and of the Dominion of Canada to meet the representatives of the United States of America for the purpose of considering the common interests of the three countries in the conservation of their natural resources. The cordiality with which the neighboring Governments accepted the invitation is no less an augury of the success of this important movement than is the disposition already shown by the conference to recognize the magnitude of the question before them. While recognizing the imperative necessity for the development and use of the great resources upon which the civilization and prosperity of nations must depend, the American Governments realize the vital need of arresting the inroads improvidently or unnecessarily made upon their natural wealth. They comprehend also that as to many of their national resources more than a merely conservative treatment is required; that reparatory agencies should be invoked to aid the processes of beneficent nature, and that the means of restoration and increase should be sought whenever practicable. They see that to the task of devising economical expenditure of resources, which, once gone, are lost forever, there should be superposed the duty of restoring and maintaining productiveness wherever impaired or menaced by wastefulness. In the northern part of the American hemisphere destruction and waste bring other evils in their train. The removal of forests, for instance, results in the aridity of vast tracts, torrential rainfalls break down and carry away the unprotected soil, and regions once abundant in vegetable and animal life become barren. This is a lesson almost as old as the human race. The older countries of Europe, Africa, and the Orient teach a lesson in this regard which has been too little heeded.
Anticipating the wide interest which would naturally be aroused in other countries by the present North American Conference, the President foresaw the probability that it would be the precurser of a world congress. By an aide-mémoire of the 6th of January last the principal Governments were informally sounded to ascertain whether they would look with favor upon an invitation to send delegates to such a conference. The responses have so far been uniformly [Page 2] favorable, and the Conference of Washington has suggested to the President that a similar general conference be called by him. The President feels, therefore, that it is timely to initiate the suggested world conference for the conservation of national resources by a formal invitation.
By direction of the President, and with the concurrence of Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands, an invitation is extended to the Government of—to send delegates to a conference to be held at The Hague at such date as may be found convenient, there to meet and consult the like delegates of the other countries, with a view to considering a general plan for an inventory of the natural resources of the world and to devising a uniform scheme for the expression of the results of such inventory to the end that there may be a general understanding and appreciation of the world’s supply of the material elements which underlie the development of civilization and the welfare of the peoples of the earth. It would be appropriate also for the conference to consider the general phases of the correlated problem of checking and, when possible, repairing the injuries caused by the waste and destruction of natural resources and utilities and make recommendations in the interest of their conservation, development, and replenishment.
With such a world inventory and such recommendations the various producing countries of the whole world would be in a better position to cooperate, each for its own good and all for the good of all, toward the safeguarding and betterment of their common means of support. As was said in the preliminary aide-mémoire of January 6:
The people of the whole world are interested in the natural resources of the whole world, benefited by their conservation, and injured by their destruction. The people of every country are interested in the supply of food and of material for manufacture in every other country, not only because these are interchangeable through processes of trade, but because a knowledge of the total supply is necessary to the intelligent treatment of each nation’s share of the supply.
Nor is this all. A knowledge of the continuance and stability of perennial and renewable resources is no less important to the world than a knowledge of the quantity or the term remaining for the enjoyment of those resources which when consumed are irreplaceable. As to all the great natural sources of national welfare, the peoples of to-day hold the earth in trust for the peoples to come after them. Reading the lessons of the past aright, it would be for such a conference to look beyond the present to the future.
You will communicate the foregoing to the Government of—with the expression of the President’s hope that we may be soon informed of its acceptance of the invitation. You will at the same time inform His Excellency that upon informal inquiry a gratifying assurance of the sympathy of the Government of the Netherlands has been received.
I am, etc.,
Acting Secretary of State.