The incidents of the great war now raging affect so seriously the very foundations of international law that there is for the moment but little satisfaction to the student of that science in discussing specific rules. Whether or not Sir Edward Carson went too far in his recent assertion that the law of nations has been destroyed, it is manifest that the structure has been rudely shaken. The barriers that statesmen and jurists have been constructing laboriously for three centuries to limit and direct the conduct of nations toward each other, in conformity to the standards of modern civilization, have proved too weak to confine the tremendous forces liberated by a conflict which involves almost the whole military power of the world and in which the destinies of nearly every civilized state outside the American continents are directly at stake.

With this meeting we finish the first decade of this Society. How great is the change of conditions in the field of international law during that period. Ten years ago all the governments of the world professed unqualified respect and obedience to the law of nations, and a very small number of persons not directly connected with government knew or cared anything about it. In this country at least international law was regarded as a rather antiquated branch of useless learning, diplomacy as a foolish mystery, and the foreign service as a superfluous expense. Now that governments have violated and flouted the law in many ways and with appalling consequences, the people of this country at least have begun to realize that observance of the law has a real and practical relation to the peace and honor of their own country and their own prosperity. They are beginning to take an interest in the subject, to discuss it in the newspapers, to inquire how observance of the law may be enforced. There appears a dawning consciousness that a democracy which undertakes to control its own foreign relations ought to know something about the subject. If we had not established this Society ten years ago to study and discuss and spread a knowledge of international law it would surely be demanded now, and we may be certain that our annual public discussions and the publication of the admirable Journal which we have always maintained, with its definite and certain informa-lion upon international events, its interesting and well informed discussion of international topics, and its supplements, with their wealth of authentic copies of international documents, have contributed materially towards fitting the people of our country to deal with the international situations which are before them.

In the beginnings of international law, in Grotius and his predecessors and immediate successors, discussion of the Right of War, the jus ad bellum, takes up a great deal of room by the side of the Right in War, the jus in bello. Today, however, the question, When is war justified? has almost ceased to be discussed. The so-called predecessors of Grotius, like himself and his immediate followers, accepted from the Roman law the notion of the bellum justum piumque. This concept was purely formal. To make a war a bellum justum piumque nothing more was required than compliance with the precepts of the fetial law as to the formalities of declaring war. To be sure, these, at least originally, required a resolution of the Senate and its ratification by the Centuriate Comitia. Later, however, this requisite, to which one could perhaps not always deny some material significance, completely disappeared behind the empty ceremony which the Pater Patratus performed at the boundary of the enemy country with the “hasta ferrata aut sanguinea prœusta” hurled across the same. Nay, in the war with Pyrrhus, a deserter from the former’s army was allowed to buy a piece of ground in Rome, into which the spear was flung as into hostile territory, in order that the Pater Patratus might not have to go all the way to the frontier. On these formalities, which naturally became more and more futile, Roman historians based their country’s reputation of never having waged an unjust war. Still, the fetial law had at least the one advantage of giving the adversary a 33 days’ respite for deliberation.

The rights and duties incident to neutrality is a branch of international law that is of comparatively recent growth. Still the distinction between belligerent nations and neutral nations and between enemy goods and neutral goods has been recognized from quite early times. In the well-known collection of maritime law known as the Consolato del Mare, which made its appearance in the fourteenth century, the rule is laid down that enemy goods on neutral ships are liable to capture, but neutral goods on enemy ships must be restored to their owner. This rule evidently assumes also the existence at that time of the belligerent right to visit and search neutral vessels.

One of the most far reaching events which may be said to have sprung indirectly from the European War, is the readjustment of the relations between Japan and China. The exact nature of this readjustment is but dimly understood in the United States, and its ultimate effects upon which is commonly called the Far Eastern Question, can be but vaguely foreseen at the present time. But the world will not fail to realize that these effects will be momentous. For this reason it is timely to trace the history of the “Japanese demands” upon China, to study the negotiations that followed and their results as embodied in the new treaties between the two Powers.

In attempting an impartial statement regarding this negotiation, it is impossible not to take cognizance of the fact that the demands of Japan for a radical modification of her treaty relations with China, followed within six months after the outbreak of the European War, and at a time when Japan’s ally, Great Britain, was engrossed in that war, and unable to give close attention to Far Eastern matters. Under the terms of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance signed August 12, 1905, as modified July 13, 1911, the two governments are mutually bound to “the preservation of the common interests of all Powers in China by insuring the independence and integrity of the Chinese Empire, and the principle of equal opportunities for the commerce and industry of all nations in China.” To what extent, if at all, that agreement may have to be disregarded in the new treaties, is a question certain to be raised when the European War shall have come to an end.

No exhaustive study has, as yet, been made of the Napoleonic era with a view of determining the exact legal status of the blockades established by the British orders in council and the French decrees. It is the purpose of this work to point out the more salient features embodied in the principles of blockade during this period as set forth and laid down by the statesmen of the United States, Great Britain and France, together with their relations to the principles of international law. With this end in view, the treaties, conventions and diplomatic intercourse between the United States and these two foreign countries have been carefully studied. The opinions of statesmen and official legal counsel, as well as the diplomatic correspondence and the decisions of the admiralty courts must be accepted as, in a large measure, establishing the international principles upon which the legality of the various acts may be determined. Court decisions during this period, however, are too much influenced by expediency, made necessary by the demands of the times, to be unconditionally accepted as the last word on the legality of the points in question; but they will nevertheless be freely used.

The history of the naval operations of the present war is quite without parallel, not only on account of the large number of enemy merchant vessels that have been destroyed without warning and the consequent loss of life of both neutral and non-combatant persons, but also because of the destruction on a large scale of ships of neutral Powers. According to the press dispatches, about one hundred and fifty neutral merchantmen, American, Danish, Dutch, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Swedish, have already been sunk by one or another belligerent—in most cases by German cruisers and submarines. The merchant marines of Denmark, Holland, Norway, and Sweden have been the heaviest sufferers. In a few cases the destruction was the resuit of error due to the alleged inability of the captor to distinguish the markings of the vessel, but in the majority of cases the reason alleged was that the ships were carrying contraband of war. In view of the extensive and unprecedented scale upon which this practice has been resorted to during the present War, the conditions under which the destruction by belligerents of neutral merchant vessels is permissible, if at all, well merit consideration in the light of international law and practice. Mr. Thomas Baty, an English authority of high standing, writing in 1911, thus states the practice of the past:

The celebrated scrap of paper incident is perhaps thought so effective a commentary on the “legal nature” of treaties that it needs no addition. “Treaties won’t stand before policy and there’s an end on’t.” The student of history is likely to take a more cautious view. He knows that treaties have been one-sidedly abrogated before. He knows that the ambiguous phrase rebus sic stantibus has generally been an implied accompaniment of treaties, and yet he knows that treaties have continued to be concluded and in general observed.

International law concerns itself so largely with a state of war that the present world-conflict has necessarily had an important bearing upon many of its usages and principles and the opinion has been freely expressed, by some whose views are entitled to respect, that the events of this war have placed the science itself in jeopardy. Without attempting to express an opinion on that point, it is clear that when the war is over, one of the first tasks to be undertaken must be the readjustment of the dislocated parts of the system to the new conditions which have arisen. In doing this we shall probably be led to trace the development of the principles of international law from their earliest formulation up to the present day; but quite outside of this practical object, the accomplishment of which must be left to the future, it may not be without interest at the present time, from the purely historical point of view, to recur to some of the circumstances in which the science came into existence, by calling attention to a much neglected book which shows us in the making some of the important principles of international law which are at issue today, a book written by a man who introduced the modern method of studying that subject. The writer to whom reference is made is Alberico Gentili, and the work in question is his Advocatio Hispanica or the Pleas of a Spanish Advocate.

If any one having an elementary acquaintance with the law of nations had been asked, twelve years ago, what were the rights of belligerents and neutrals in naval warfare, he would not have been at a loss for a reply. Subject to one or two minor points of unsettled detail, he would have been quite clear and certain as to the position. A continuous series of cases and textbooks made it plain. If some went further than others in claiming extended neutral immunities, that was a point of academic argument which was perhaps of interest, but of no particular importance, except as showing that the trend of thought was on the whole unfavorable to the belligerent.