From the day on which the United States of America declared that it would not become a party to the League of Nations, the thoughts of many people have naturally turned to the situation created by this abstention, the seriousness of which was necessarily clear to everyone.

Some think that the matter should be taken lightly. In their opinion the attitude of the United States can only be transitory and at some future time, which may, however, be still far distant, the country will modify its decision and make up its mind to occupy the place reserved for it in the League of Nations. Others allow themselves to be misguided by a different hope. According to them the League of Nations cannot live and will sooner or later disappear to make place for another grouping of nations which would win the approval and adhesion of the American Republic. Between these extreme views there lie the proposals of those who seek relief in the present situation, basing their expectations either upon such a revision of the Covenant as would satisfy the United States or upon the creation of a world association which would join the United States, the present League of Nations and other states not yet belonging thereto into one great group.

The peace conference held at Paris in 1919 was called upon to consider no question of wider political or economic significance than that of the ordering of navigation on those great rivers usually designated as international and of which the Danube affords one of the most striking examples. In the long progress of 1800 miles from its source eastwards to the Black Sea this river traverses or bounds the territory of eight extensive states displaying a route capable of beneficial exploitation on the part of every country in Europe. Rising on the easterly slope of the Black Forest hill region in the extreme south of Baden, where it is formed by the union at Donaueschingen of two small streams flowing southerly from points near Villingen and Furtwangen, the Danube pursues a general easterly course across Wurtemberg and Bavaria. At Ulm it is joined by the Iller and now becomes navigable.

Unique among the governing bodies of the world today, controlling in large measure about thirty-one thousand square kilometers of the former German Empire with a population exceeding six million inhabitants, the Interallied Rhineland High Commission, the supreme representative of the Allied and Associated Powers within the occupied territory, presents to the student of administrative law much that is enlightening, interesting and valuable. In this branch of jurisprudence, so highly developed among continental European nations, America has not specialized to any marked degree, and indeed the same may be said of Great Britain. The High Commission— referred to hereinafter for the sake of brevity as the Commission— is the antithesis of the legal doctrine enunciated by Montesquieu and so readily accepted by the framers of our own Constitution: the triune distribution of power, the separation of governmental authority into executive, legislative and judicial departments, each distinct and independent of the others, yet all so correlated as to make one consistent, harmonious and logical system of government. The Commission itself exercises executive, legislative and judicial authority, and not infrequently issues its administrative mandates, enacts important and far-reaching ordinances, and reviews, as would an appellate court, the action of a German civil or criminal court at one and the same sitting. And it must be said with entire frankness that it does all these things well. Perhaps its limited personnel—men, however, of exceeding high mental and statesmanlike qualities—is responsible for much of its success. Be that as it may, the excellence of its administration is another proof that the “ form” of a government is not the thing which counts, but the results of that government's action.

Traffic and trade among peoples are the prerequisites to any international law. Essentially distinct from them, however, are the right of peoples to traffic and trade with each other and the rules of law governing such international traffic. The aggregate of these rules constitutes the international traffic law.

For a hundred years or longer there have been legal rules regulating international traffic, but in no case was any attempt made to cover more than specific questions as they presented themselves for solution, no need being felt as yet among the peoples for a systematic regulation of the law as a whole.

When different races of people, possessed of different religions, moral standards and civilizations, come into contact a certain amount of friction will inevitably result. This is well illustrated by the sometimes troublous experience of western traders and missionaries in China. The part of our own diplomatic correspondence concerned with the protection of Americans in that country is voluminous and full of interest, and illustrates our distinctive diplomacy in the Far East.