The question about each international conference is not merely what it has accomplished, but also what it has begun, and what it has moved forward. Not only the conventions signed and ratified, . but the steps taken toward conclusions which may not reach practical and effective form for many years to come, are of value. Some of the resolutions adopted by the last conference do not seem to amount to very much by themselves, but each one marks on some line of progress the farthest point to which the world is yet willing to go. They are like cable ends buoyed in mid-ocean, to be picked up hereafter by somer steamer, spliced, and continued to shore. The greater the reform proposed, the longer must be the process required to bring many nations differing widely in their laws, customs, traditions, interests, prejudices, into agreement. Each necessary step in the process is as useful as the final act which crowns the work and is received with public celebration.