Success Quote by Henry Campbell-Bannerman

Arbitration is doing double duty here: it is both a policy proposal and a self-portrait. Campbell-Bannerman’s “fervently trust” sounds almost devotional, but the real calculation is political. He’s trying to normalize the idea that great powers can submit their disputes to rules, not reflexes. The key phrase is “win such confidence” - arbitration isn’t framed as morally right so much as operationally credible. In an era when imperial prestige was treated like a strategic asset, that’s a shrewd repositioning: peace through process, not sentiment.

The subtext is anxiety about a world drifting toward mechanized, alliance-driven war. Late 19th- and early 20th-century Europe was thick with rivalries and newly lethal military capacity; “international differences” is a polite umbrella for colonial competition, naval arms races, and nationalist flashpoints. By calling for a “wider field,” he’s not talking about minor trade quarrels. He’s gesturing at the kind of disputes states normally reserve for gunboats and mobilization timetables.

Rhetorically, the sentence is cautious to the point of strategic meekness. It asks for extension only after arbitration has “won” confidence, sidestepping the charge that Britain would be tying its own hands. “Gentlemen” signals a clubby diplomatic world where legitimacy is granted by elites; the appeal is to that audience’s self-image as rational custodians of order. The intent isn’t to abolish power politics. It’s to civilize it just enough that catastrophe looks avoidable - and statesmanship looks like restraint rather than surrender.