agreement implies in conformity with the principles of international law which establishes and regulates, in a clear and positive manner, the rights and obligations which naturally spring and flow from a conventional neutrality freely adopted by a state, in its relations of contractual and positive law with all the other states, for which it creates the legal bonds and relations involved in the status of voluntary and perpetual neutrality.

History and juridical principles jointly show us that the first condition of all neutrality is that the state which desires to occupy such a juridical situation must be firmly determined to remain independent and neutral, that is to say, resolved to protect itself against any attempt at annexation or violation on the part of its neighbors or of a stranger, not to interfere in their disputes, and to observe a strict neutrality and impartiality in all their conflicts.

It seems unquestioned that one of the principal objects of the concept of the idea of permanent neutrality, is to impose upon the states which recognize and guarantee it, the duty to consider themselves isolated or separated by an insurmountable wall around the neutralized territory, and to hold themselves, as it were, at a distance from the strategical points included within the neutral zone which, for that very reason, none of them ought to occupy, nor avail themselves of in any way in order to obtain any advantage over or become a threatening danger to the others.

This rule of equity and impartiality, which is applicable to the guaranteeing states, is equally applicable to those which are friends, allies, protectors of, or in coalition with, any of them, in respect to the others, even in case they have neither guaranteed nor recognized such neutrality, should they attempt to violate it under the cover of any of those which are under obligation to respect it. In a word, what one of the guaranteeing states cannot do by itself, it cannot do by or for another, because the object of neutrality, for the countries which recognize it, is to preserve in the neutralized country such conditions as will insure to all its guarantors and neighbors the absolute security of their boundaries. In this sense neutrality constitutes a more concrete, effective and definite form of the right of self-preservation of nations; a natural and absolute right which gives to conventional neutrality all the value and

efficacy of those treaties the object of which is the sanction of the eternal principles of justice and equity which must govern the relations of nations as well as those of individuals.

The principles of natural law are not the only ones which give support to the real concept of neutrality which I have just mentioned. Positive law, as well as the practice of diplomacy equally, have also always understood it in this manner, ascribing to it a similar nature, sense and scope.

A great statesman and eminent historian, defending in the French Parliament the neutrality of Belgium, which had just been provided for in the Conference of London in 1831, defined thus the scope of the neutrality of Belgium as well as that of Switzerland:

The Alps [said Adolph Thiers in his speech of November 20, 1831] constitute one of the most important parts of the frontiers of Europe. Austria, Germany, Italy and France are not willing to cede them to each other, nor to any of them. What to do then? Nothing can be simpler; they have placed them in trust in the hands of a valorous and prudent people who keep them and who cannot in any event abuse them. That is the object of the Swiss neutrality! In Belgium there is also a portion of the frontiers which neither England, nor Germany, nor France, are willing to cede to each other; such are the shores of the ocean and the mouth of the principal rivers of Europe. That is the object of the Belgian neutrality!

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And how right the thought of European diplomacy was in 1831! If the Swiss frontiers had not been neutralized, neither France, nor Austria, nor Germany, nor Italy, would have been able to divert in the present war the great forces which they have not been obliged to place on their Swiss border, and the territory of Switzerland would not be to-day a peaceful and tranquil refuge, in the midst of the great furnace which is consuming the belligerent countries.

But it might be said that Belgian neutrality has been impotent to afford peace and protection to the noble and heroic Belgian people. The universal reproof and condemnation which the cultured world has fulminated against the violation of the guaranteed neutrality of Belgium, is the greatest proof of the efficacy of its establishment, because no sanction is more effective in showing the virtue and efficacy of a principle of justice, than the evils which it occasions and the indig

nation which its violation and disregard awakens in the human conscience. Had Belgian neutrality been respected, perhaps England would not have entered into the conflict, and the march of events in the great European war would be very different.

That is the reason why publicists agree that a conventional neutrality is not only advantageous and wholesome for the neutralized state, but its consequences must extend, and in effect they do extend, to third parties, since the latter are obliged to respect it, under penalty of bringing against them a coalition of the coguaranteeing states and the violated country. The example which we are witnessing in Belgium is very instructive and suggestive, and demonstrates to us that neutrality is an institution of natural and international law, which humanity has consecrated as one of its greatest triumphs in the field of diplomacy and justice.

It is well known that the Congress of Vienna of 1815, in pursuance of the plan of confining revolutionary France within its ancient boundaries and of establishing in the north, between the ocean and the Rhine, a bulwark against French ambitions, separated Belgian territory from that of France, to which it had been annexed, and, instead of constituting Belgium an independent country, made the grave mistake in order to satisfy the aspirations of England, of annexing the Belgian provinces, considered as vacant territory, to the Dutch Monarchy. As the result of this achievement of English diplomacy Belgium in 1830 threw off the Dutch yoke and provoked a European crisis by upsetting the balance of power established by the Congress of Vienna. Naturally, France lent its support to the subversive movement of the Belgians and threatened to intervene in their behalf if the other Powers which guaranteed the annexation of Belgium to Holland in 1815 should attempt to reestablish the equilibrium of the treaties. In this way the Belgium revolution for independence was consummated, and England, this time more farsighted and realizing the error of the forcible annexation of 1815, refused all armed support to the King of Holland, under the pretext that it was too late.

Lord Aberdeen, realizing that the integrity of Holland as conceived by English diplomacy, would, if maintained by force, entail grave dangers for the general peace, ingeniously proposed to the Dutch Govern

ment to submit the Belgian question to a conference of plenipotentiaries of the five great Powers, which should meet in London. The Dutch Government accepted Lord Aberdeen's scheme demanding only that the conference begin its labors by declaring an armistice between the Dutch armies and the Belgian rebels, which in substance was an implied admission that the treaties of 1815, the only title upon which the reestablishment of Dutch control in Belgium might be defended before the Conference, were invalidated.

As the new alliance between England and France would support the new combination which, by the very nature of things, was imperative, the absolutist Powers which had guaranteed the arrangement of 1815 saw no other way out of the situation than to join in the attitude of the English government. Metternich, who was an indefatigable worker for the preservation of the monument erected by the Congress of Vienna, could do nothing else and confined himself to seeing that the new combination should counterbalance French ambitions, and in order to maintain the balance of power of 1815 that Belgium, if incorporated with France or made only nominally independent, it should never be left in fact under the control of the French Government.

Having arranged an armistice, which was accepted by the belligerents from the first session of the conference, the conference decided to invite the King of the Netherlands to send a delegation to it, in order that Holland might take part in its deliberations, pursuant to Article IV of the protocol concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle on November 15, 1818. In order to keep within the purpose of the conference it was necessary that it should not depart from its fundamental mission by disregarding the interests of Europe, which were necessarily united for the preservation of the general equilibrium. With this purpose in view, the conference, at a session held on December 20, 1830, recognized that the aim of the signatory Powers of the Treaty of Vienna in reuniting Belgium and Holland was the formation and establishment of a just balance of power in Europe for the preservation of the general peace, and as the Belgian revolution showed the inefficacy of such a combination, "the Conference had to discuss and agree upon new and more appropriate and adequate arrangements to combine the future independence of Belgium with the interests and security of the other Powers and with

the European balance of power." These facts are sufficient for us to determine the nature of the purposes and the evolutions which they underwent within the conference; which are important in the consideration of the subject of this article.

The Conference of London met upon the initiative of the King of Holland (in reality imposed by England), by virtue of the right which the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle gave to every sovereign to ask the Powers for their diplomatic good offices, in the absence of material help. By the first resolution of the conference which virtually contained the principle of the separation of the two belligerent countries, the conference substantially assumed the character of a mediation, which the King of Holland had also to accept. By the protocol of December 20, which ended the revolution, the conference quickly assumed the character of a real arbitration.

Assuming thus this important rôle, the conference did not now understand that it must confine itself to the humble task of studying and proposing to the belligerents, for their approval, the most appropriate basis for the solution of the armed dispute between them; but it went further and assumed the character of a court which supremely decides the question in all its details and believes itself entitled to impose its judgment without appeal, as a high European court, upon the contending parties, whose only right was thus reduced to furnish data and express opinions which might enlighten the discussions of the conference. Whatever the prescriptions of international law may be, diplomatic history teaches us that real mediations, whether in time of peace or in time of war, have almost always assumed the rôle that the Conference of London saw itself soon compelled to take. Such was the mediation which France imposed upon Austria and Prussia at the peace of Nickolsburg, and such was also the mediation which M. Thiers asked at London, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Florence, in September, 1870, during his painful viacrucis before the European courts.

This is even more important to remember, if we consider that the Central American Conference of Washington had all the characteristics of a mediation between Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua after Namasigüe and in spite of the change which took place in the system of alliances created between the three belligerents as a consequence of the