provisions of the Treaty generally, and warranted a potentially offensive attitude on mere suspicion of aggressive purposes a possible " arming to prevent war." It might bring us back to the old pre-war conditions, based on the profiteering maxim : Si vis paccm para helium.
The notion that usage without sanctions is not law underlay the introduction of Article X. into the Treaty a notion which is not borne out by either the history of civil law or its practice.
It is seen, in short, that international law is by no means dead. Far from being dead, it is relied upon more than ever to become a substitute for force, and especially for the pre-war theory of the necessity of competition in armaments.
The successful creation of numerous new societies for the study and promotion of the reign of law among nations shows how widespread is the feeling that we need more respect for law and less for solutions dictated at the cannon's mouth.
Moreover, there remain the Wilsonian principles, as accepted by all the belligerent Governments, constituting a sort of new charter for guidance in the reform of public law which in creat- ing the League of Nations and its adjuncts have laid the founda- tions of new organs for the strengthening and enforcement of law among and between Governments.
A close examination of the 14 points laid down by President Wilson in his address of Jan. 8 1918, reaffirmed in the four of that of July 4 1918, and the five of his address of Sept. 27 1918, reveals several underlying principles which may be considered as constituting a sort of fundamental international programme adopted with one reservation by the Allies in Mr. Lansing's reply to Germany of Nov. 5 1918, and freely accepted by Ger- many and her allies. These principles may be summed up as follows:
1. No secret international agreements (i ; also one of the five) ;
2. Freedom of the sea and its channels (2, 12; subject to reservations referred to in Mr. Lansing's letter of Nov. 5);
3. Most favoured nation treatment to be generalized (3; also one of the five) ;
4. Restriction of armaments (4) ;
5. Acquiescence of populations in all matters affecting sovereignty over them (5, 6; also one of the four);
6. Abolition of the " right of conquest " (7, 8, 1 1 ; also among both the four and the five) ;
7. Access to the sea a right for all States (n, 13);
8. All States as settled by the Treaty of Peace to be guaranteed an equal right to their independence and integrity (14; also among the four) ;
9. Racial homogeneity of population to be a ground of adjust- ment of frontiers (9, 12).
Principle (5) may in some instances conflict with principle (9); (3) may not always tally with (8), and some of them may not be capable of universal application. Nevertheless, they con- stitute the main lines on which it was promised to European democracy that a resettlement of Europe would be based. (See Barclay, Collapse and Reconstruction. Boston, 1919, p. 21, etc.)
A crude, and not always successful, attempt was made in the treaties of peace to carry out these principles. Democracy in the chief countries of the Allied Powers, unfortunately, had not yet had time up to 1921 to grasp their importance. Moreover, their application, to a great extent, has been obscured and per- verted by circumstances which arose out of the chaos caused by conflicting claims of ambitious and noisy minorities, and the recasting by an unskilled diplomacy of Western Europe. Never- theless, the charter exists, and with the spread of democratic influence among Governments its importance for posterity will probably become more distinctly obvious.
The subjects on which the war and its after-effects may be said to ha,ve led to differences of view, and which are likely more particularly to be influenced in the development of inter- national law, are neutrality, contraband of war, blockade and prize, the position of armed merchant vessels, the rights and duties of aircraft, and the legal conditions applicable to enemy private property.
2. Neutrality. The old theory of neutrality was that the only restrictions to which a neutral's freedom of action in war was subject were such as would or might constitute assistance
or favour, direct or indirect, to either belligerent. Thus neutral ships had to submit to visit and search for contraband of war, and to respect blockade of enemy ports and areas. But they had, in general, the right to carry on intercourse and traffic with either enemy without hindrance, even to supply either side with munitions of war subject only to the belligerent right to capture them if possible.
At the outset of the war, and during the first years of its continuance, there was considerable diplomatic friction between the United States and England, and between the United States and Germany and Austria, respecting the British restraints on American commerce on the one hand, and, on the other, on account of the overwhelming advantage enjoyed by England in respect of war material supplied from the United States.
One of the chief subjects of American complaint was the new practice instituted of bringing neutral vessels into port for search instead of the older practice of visit and search, which interfered as little as possible with the course of their voyage.
The American Secretary of State in a communication of Oct. 21 1915 to the United States ambassador in London protested against the British contention that "modern conditions" justify bringing vessels into port for search, and that the size and sea- worthiness of modern carriers of commerce and the difficulty of ascertaining the real transaction in the intricate trade opera- tions of the present day make it impossible to effect an adequate search on the high sea. " It is believed," he wrote, " that com- mercial transactions of the present time, hampered as they are by censorship of telegraph and postal communication on the part of belligerents, are essentially no more complex and dis- guised than in the wars of recent years, during which the prac- tice of obtaining evidence in port to determine whether a vessel should be held for prize proceedings was not adopted." The effect of the size and seaworthiness of merchant vessels upon their search at sea, he added, had been submitted to a board of naval experts, who had reported that:
" At no period in history has it been considered necessary to remove every package of a ship's cargo to establish the character and nature of her trade or the service on which she is bound, nor is such removal necessary. . . . The facilities for boarding and in- spection of modern ships are in fact greater than in former times, and no difference, so far as the necessities of the case are concerned, can be seen between the search of a ship of 1,000 tons and one of 20,000 tons except possibly a difference in time for the purpose of establishing fully the character of her cargo and the nature of her service and destination. . . ."
Complaints were also made respecting the detention of neutral vessels on bare suspicion and the methods employed in respect of evidence against them. The U.S. Government pointed out that under the hitherto existing practice when a vessel was brought in for adjudication, courts of prize considered " at the first hearing only the ship's papers and documents, and the goods found on board, together with the written replies of the officers and seamen to standing interrogatories taken under oath, alone and separately, as soon as possible, and without communication with or instruction by counsel, in order to avoid possibility of corruption and fraud." Additional evidence was not allowed to be introduced except upon an order of the court for " further proof," and then only after the cause had been fully heard upon the facts already in evidence or when this evidence furnished a ground for prosecuting the enquiry- further. This had been the practice of the U.S. courts during the war of 1812, the American Civil War, and the Spanish- American War, and had been the practice of the British prize courts for over a century. This practice was changed by the British prize court rules adopted by the Order in Council of Aug. 5 1915. Under these new rules there was no longer a " first hearing " on the evidence derived from the ship, and the prize court was no longer precluded from receiving extrinsic evidence for which a suggestion had not been laid in the pre- paratory evidence. The result was, contended the U.S. Govern- ment, that innocent vessels or cargoes were seized and detained on mere suspicion, while efforts were being made to obtain evidence from extraneous sources to justify the detention and
