The Permanent Court of International Justice has settled down to continuous hard work. The experimental stage seems now to be passed, and though the revision of the Statute is still pending, the Court has entered upon a period in which attention is to be concentrated on its functioning from month to month. During 1932, the Court was in session for 240 days. The 23rd session, which began on November 5, 1931, and was broken by a recess from December 15,1931, to January 11,1932, was not concluded until February 4, 1932. The 24th session began on February 1, 1932, and was concluded on March 8,1932. The 25th session began on April 18,1932, and continued until August 11,1932.

The recent decision of the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals in the case of John T. Bill Co. Inc. v. United States, C.A.D. 57, 27 C.C.P.A. (Customs) 26,104 F. (2d) 67 (decided May 29, 1939), is of distinct importance in its bearing on the foreign commercial policy of the United States. In this case, an appellate court, for the first time, had squarely presented to it the question of giving effect to the unconditional mostfavored- nation provisions of an American commercial treaty as against a later statute containing no express reservation respecting treaty provisions. This decision may well be regarded as the turning-point in the construction given to the most-favored-nation clause by the American courts.

Connected as it is with the progress of the present phenomenal movement for international peace, the question whether the Panama Canal should be permanently fortified as part of its construction and before it is opened to the commerce of the world, is of the highest importance; and for this reason the views and conclusions of the commissioners who considered the subject under authority of Congress in 1899–1901, when negotiations were in progress between the United States and Great Britain for a new agreement to take the place of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, are of the gravest public interest and are worthy of the most considerate attention. It was not until November, 1903, that the Isthmian Canal Zone came under “ the perpetual control ” of the United States by the treaty of the 18th of that month with the new-born Republic of Panama; but, for some years prior, the United States had been considering the acquisition of a strip of territory in the Isthmus, and the construction of a waterway between the two oceans, on its own responsibility, at its own cost, and under its own control. It was from this new point of view that the Canal Commission of 1899–1901, of which the late Admiral Walker was president, made its investigations and report; and it was to open the way to the accomplishment of this enterprise without a violation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and with the consent of Great Britain, whose interests in the physical union of the Atlantic and Pacific were second only to those of the United States, that the negotiations then pending between the two governments had been commenced and were subsequently carried on until they resulted in the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, which was signed on November 18, 1901, proclaimed February 22, 1902, and is now in force. It antedated by some months the passage of “ the Spooner bill,” which provided for the purchase of the rights and property of the New Panama Canal Company (De Lesseps’ successor in France) and for the acquisition of the necessary territorial rights from Colombia, or, failing that, from Nicaragua and Costa Rica.