9, but merely indicates the procedure to be followed by Powers desirous of acting under it.

In the second place, it is wholly unimportant whether or no the scope of Art.

9 is enlarged by Art.10.The entire liberty of the Powers to make any arrangement which may seem good to them for clearing up their differences is neither given, nor impaired, by the articles in question, to which the good sense of the Conference declined to attach any such obligatory force as had been proposed by Russia.

It may well be that disputant Powers may at any time choose to agree to employ the machinery suggested by those articles, or something resembling it, in cases of a far more serious kind than those to which alone the convention ventured to make its recommendation applicable; and this is the course which seems to have been followed by the Powers interested with reference to the recent lamentable occurrence in the North Sea.
As to the convention as a whole, it is important to bear in mind that, differing in this respect from the two other conventions concluded at The Hague, it is of a non-obligatory character, except in so far as it provides for the establishment of a permanent tribunal at The Hague, to which, however, no Power is bound to resort.

It resembles not so much a treaty as a collection of "pious wishes" (_voeux_), such as those which were also adopted at The Hague.