Meaning of the phrase “principles of international law and of equity” as used in Article 7 of the Special Agreement between the United States and Great Britain of August 18, 1910, and of the phrase “admission of liability” in paragraph II of the Terms of Submission attached to the Special Agreement.

“A trust for mankind” is what President Cleveland in a message termed such an enterprise as the Panama Canal. The question just now is whether such a trust is administered properly by giving to vessels engaged in the coasting trade of the United States a total exemption from tolls. It should be noticed that the question is not whether exemption may be given to war ships and other ships of the government, but whether it may be given to the ships of private owners. It should be noticed also that the question is not whether there may be a subsidy, —in other words, not whether the tolls of such vessels may properly be paid out of the national treasury — in which case the burden would be bome by all residents of the United States through the internal revenue, the tariff, and other taxes, and the benefit would be enjoyed initially by the treasury of the Panama Canal and eventually by all persons whom the canal may serve. No, the question is whether, in the words of the Panama Canal Act of 1912, “no tolls shall be levied upon vessels engaged in the coastwise trade of the United States,” — with the almost inevitable result that the tolls exacted from other vessels will thus be made heavier than they otherwise would be.

This year, 1913, is the fiftieth anniversary of a very important event in the history of international law ― the adoption and enforcement by the American Government of the code of rules governing the conduct of armies in the field, which is known to the American army as General Orders No. 100, of 1863. It happens that without any intention to create a coincidence the seventh annual meeting of the American Society of International Law is appointed and we are met here, exactly fifty years after the twenty-fourth day of April, 1863, when President Lincoln promulgated that famous order. It seems appropriate for this Society at this time to celebrate the event by paying honor to Francis Lieber, the author of the instructions embodied in the order.

On the 15th of November, 1912, the United States and Great Britain formally ratified and put into effect an agreement which, in consequence of diplomatic negotiations covering nearly two years, had been signed by their plenipotentiaries on the 20th of July, 1912, adopting with certain modifications the rules and method of procedure embodied in the award of the North Atlantic Coast Fisheries Arbitration Tribunal, rendered at The Hague on September 7, 1910, under which all questions hereafter arising in regard to the exercise of American fishing liberties under the treaty of 1818 may be determined in accordance with the principles laid down in the award. This agreement constitutes the final step which was necessary to complete and perfect the arbitration award and give it practical application; and the award and this agreement together establish for all time the extent of the rights and obligations of the inhabitants of the United States in the exercise of thenfishing liberties under the treaty of 1818.

In a communication to the Congress of the Confederation, February 20, 1787, the Netherlands minister protested against an Act of the legislature of the State of Virginia, which exempted French brandies imported in French and American vessels from certain duties to which like commodities imported in vessels of the Netherlands were left liable, as in contravention of the most-favored-nation clause in Article II of the treaty of 1782. This article provided that the subjects of the Netherlands should pay in the ports of the United States no other or greater duties or imposts of whatever nature or denomination than those which the nations the most favored were or should be obliged to pay; and that they should enjoy all the rights, liberties, privileges, immunities and exemptions in trade, navigation and commerce which the most favored nations did or should enjoy. The article contained no express qualification that the favor or privilege should be extended freely if freely given or for an equivalent if conditional.

The Panama Canal project has its roots deep in the past. The diplomatic complications presented by the enterprise have been as difficult to overcome as the engineering obstacles. Now that the dream of ages is about to become a reality, certain of our newspapers, impressed with the magnitude of the task which the United States has undertaken and carried well-nigh to completion, are asking impatiently, what rights has Great Britain in the canal, why should she venture to dictate what use we shall make of our own property? Merely to say that England has rights under the Hay-Pauncefote treaty does not appear to satisfy these critics. They ask again, why did the United States ever give England any voice at all in the matter? In order to answer this question we have to go back to the middle of the last century when the Clayton-Bulwer treaty was negotiated and see what the relative positions of the United States and England with respect to the isthmus were at that time.

When Grotius was a young lawyer he served for a time as counsel for the Dutch East India Company. Out of his early labors as a corporation lawyer there grew later two wonderful books ― one the De Jure Belli et Pacis, the greatest gift that any lawyer ever gave to the world, and the other, published in 1608, the Mare Liberum. In 1868, came to light the brief which he had written in a celebrated case in which the company had captured a rich Portuguese galleon in the Straits of Malacca. It was found that one chapter of the Mare Liberum had been taken bodily from this brief. At the time the book was written, Portugal claimed dominion of the eastern and England of the northern seas. John Selden of the Inner Temple, most famous of English legal scholars, answered Grotius by a work entitled Mare Clausum; but the stars in their courses fought against Selden and today the world rejoices in the freedom of the seas.

The signing of the Franco-Spanish treaty concerning the Moroccan question on November 27th marks the last stage in the process of establishing a French protectorate in the Shereefian Empire. For years the European Powers have watched the steady decline of the “little Realm of the West,” the continued loss of power and prestige by its sovereigns both in local and in national affairs, and the gradual disruption of the entire state. Ever since 1880, France, the nearest and most interested African neighbor, has been a keen observer of every move of the Sultans; and she has rendered the harassed and incapable rulers every assistance, diplomatic and otherwise, that these sovereigns would accept and the Powers permit. The French have seen from the first that nothing short of an European protectorate would suffice to save the Sultans, to ensure the establishment of an efficient administration, to afford ample security for life and property, and to give peace and prosperity to the long-suffering and oppressed people.

Neutralization is the imposition by international agreement of a condition of permanent neutrality upon lands and waterways.

The author of the essay 1 of which the foregoing is the opening sentence draws the following distinction between the neutrality and the neutralization of states (p. 1):

While simple neutrality is the condition of those states which in time of war take no part in the contest, but continue pacific intercourse with the belligerents, neutralization perpetuates this condition by means of treaties effected between several powerful nations and the neutralized state.

I suppose there is a stage in the development of the creature at which opinion may very well vary as to whether it is a tadpole or a full-fledged, or rather a four-footed, frog. Canada, constitutionally, is in a somewhat uncertain case; for, if you say that she is a colony, you will be confronted with some well-developed legs, and if you say that she is an independent state, you will be asked to explain away the remains of the tail. What sort of compromising language a biologist would apply to his dubiosity, I do not know; but, with reference to Canada, I am prepared to make a distinction, — to say that she is nominally a colony, and really an independent state. A veritable bit of the actual tail is still visible; there may not, indeed, be enough for performance of its former function of control, but quite enough to betray the origin of the animal; while the legs can very clearly kick, if not speak, for themselves. Nominally, I say, Canada is a colony; the forms, the nomenclature, the legal appearance still exist. But in reality Canada is independent and governs herself. A short summary of Canadian political history will establish that point.

It is always advisable while laying down any rule whereby human actions are framed, to ascertain the basis on which such principle or rule rests. Such an inquiry is by no means useless in dealing with the science of international law, even though one may regard this branch of knowledge as being merely “positive”; for the conduct of states, just as that of individuals, is generally modelled according to some idea or principle. It will not be unprofitable, therefore, to begin this study with a note, short as it must necessarily be, on the grounds of the liability of states, so that in this manner it may become comparatively easy to ascertain what are the rights of states whose citizens or subjects have suffered damages in the course of riots or insurrections that have taken place in a foreign country.