The treaty of peace, concluded at Paris, between the United States and Spain, December 10, 1898, provided, in Article VII, as follows:

The United States and Spain mutually relinquish all claims for indemnity, national and individual, of every kind, of either Government or of its citizens or subjects, against the other Government that may have arisen since the beginning of the late insurrection in Cuba, and prior to the exchange of ratifications of the present treaty, including all claims for indemnity for the cost of the war. The United States will adjudicate and settle the claims of its citizens against Spain relinquished in this article.

During the year which has elapsed since the writer first devoted attention to some of the legal aspects of aerial navigation, very material progress has been made in the art itself. Longer and more regularly controlled nights have been recorded by both the dirigible balloon and the aeroplane type of aircraft, between stated localities on land, over territorial waters and even over lanes of commercial importance upon the high seas. A great number and variety of aircraft are being built for state as well as. private uses in large establishments erected in many countries for that particular purpose. The field of experiment and demonstration has constantly broadened. Great nations have established a special aeronautic service for use in conjunction with both the army and the navy. So great is the importance ascribed to the function of aircraft in the next great war that much attention is already directed toward the construction of special means for effectual defense. Indeed, an entirely new type of ordnance has resulted, having, as we shall see, a notable influence upon some questions of international law.

So much has been written on the doctrine of continuous voyages as a principle of international law, and the authorities, especially those in English, have been so thoroughly exhausted, that another article upon the same subject should not be intruded upon readers except perhaps by reason of a novel treatment of the subject or the presentation of new facts. The latter will, it is hoped, furnish sufficient excuse for the appearance of this paper.

Preceding any intelligent discussion of the status of the Panama Canal regarding freedom of passage and inviolability in war, which have so generally and so loosely been spoken of as "neutralization" even in official documents of the latest date, it will be necessary first to examine the treaty obligations of the United States under which the Canal is now under construction, and which define the powers of control over it when it shall be finished.

Ten years ago, on the 14th of August, the Dowager-Empress, with the entire Imperial Court, fled from Peking. The victorious army of the allied foreign powers was left in control. This was the culmination of a series of national humiliations that humbled China's proud spirit to the dust and finally broke down the resistance which had for centuries withstood the efforts of Western civilization to gain an entrance.

Of the two kinds of prescription, acquisitive (acquisition by usucaption) or extinctive, the latter has more frequently received the consideration of claims commissions and to it we desire first to particularly address ourselves.

The field of international law in general is sharply demarked from that of municipal law, but it is the individuals, composing the population of the various states and nations, who furnish the points of contact where international friction may be generated. With the claims of a citizen or subject against his own government, and its officers and agencies, international law naturally has nothing to do. But when an individual asserts a claim against a government not his own, or against the individuals who carry on its operations, such a claim falls on one side or the other of the boundary between international law and municipal law, according to whether the claimant has or has not an adequate remedy in the ordinary courts of the state against which the claim exists.