Whether or not it was possible at the time for those who framed the treaties which terminated the World War of 1914–1918 to have better provided for the years of peace which were to follow, it is now generally recognized that the terms agreed upon by the Allied Powers and imposed upon Germany were not as wise as they might have been. This is a conclusion which experience has demonstrated, and, from this experience, it is proper that nations should derive wisdom with regard to any future treaties of peace which may be entered into. Hence it is that, since the outbreak of the present European war, there has been much discussion as to what terms should be imposed upon Germany if and when she is compelled to sue for peace.

The Egytian problem presents two aspects. One concerns the purely political struggle for independence. The other has to do with the favored position of foreigners in Egypt under the régime of the Capitulations. The former was primarily a private concern between the two countries involved—Egypt and Great Britain. The other, while touching in a special manner the responsibilities accepted by the “occupying Power,” concerned in an important manner the several foreign nations which had come to have stakes of great importance in the country—interests of a commercial, professional, educational, religious and even semi-political character. The separate nature of these two aspects of the same problem is well illustrated by the fact that two entirely separate series of international negotiations were required to deal with them.

When the present European war broke out and neutral rights came into the foreground of America’s anxieties, the President advised the public to study the conduct of the United States during the Civil War. That desperate struggle is inevitably the American touchstone for belligerent rights because, as Secretary of State Seward pointed out in 1863.

While recognized members of the community of nations are bound by the established rules of international law without any explicit act of acceptance, they cannot become bound by new rules without express or implied consent. International law and municipal law have different sources and sanctions, consequently a state’s municipal law cannot be taken as the measure of either its rights or its obligations under international law.

Early in the afternoon of January 21, 1940, the Japanese steamship Asama Maru, proceeding from Honolulu to Yokohama, was stopped at a point 35 nautical miles off the coast of Japan by a British man-of-war. The British warship boarded the Asama Maru, and, “claiming to act under a right in international law but without explaining in detail the reasons for its actions and without even disclosing its name,” forcibly removed 21 of the 50 Germans on board.

If an event in the physical world contradicts all scientific forecasts, and thus challenges the assumptions on which the forecasts have been based, it is the natural reaction of scientific inquiry to reëxamine the foundations of the specific science and attempt to reconcile scientific findings and empirical facts. The social sciences do not react in the same way. They have an inveterate tendency to stick to their assumptions and to suffer constant defeat from experience rather than to change their assumptions inthe light of contradicting facts. This resistance to change is uppermost in the history of international law. All the schemes and devices by which great humanitarians and shrewd politicians endeavored to reorganize the relations between states on the basis of law, have not stood the trial of history.