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CHAPTER VI

SETTLEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES BY ARBITRATION
AND MEDIATION The Alabama Claims. The Fur-Seal
Fisheries.

CHAPTER VII

THE HAGUE CONFERENCES-Pacific Settlement of Interna-
tional Disputes. Forcible Collection of Contract Debts.
Declaration of War. Laws and Customs of War on
Land. Discharge of Projectiles and Explosives from
Balloons. Laws and Customs of War on the Sea.
Status of Enemy Merchant Ships at the Outbreak of
Hostilities. Conversion of Merchant Ships into War-
ships. Laying of Automatic Submarine Contact Mines.
Bombardment by Naval Forces in Time of War. Adapta-
tion to Naval War of the Principles of the Geneva Con-
vention. Right of Capture in Naval War. Rights and
Duties of Neutrals in Naval War. Declaration of Lon-
don Concerning the Laws of Naval Warfare.
Convention.

CHAPTER VIII

Red Cross

OTHER RECENT GENERAL WELFARE CONVENTIONS-Conven-
tions of the Central American States. Repression of the
Circulation of Obscene Publications. International Am-
erican Conferences. Pecuniary Claims Convention.
Literary and Artistic Copyright. Protection of Trade-
marks. Inventions, Patents, Designs, and Industrial
Models. Industrial Property Convention. International
Sanitary Convention. Wireless Telegraph Convention.

CHAPTER IX

INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENTAL

ESTABLISHMENTS-Suc-

cesses and Failure of the General Welfare Conventions.
National Expansion.

CHAPTER X

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS: COVENANT AND PEACE TREATY

WITH GERMANY.

INTRODUCTORY

The relations of nations and of people to each other are determined by the sum total of human progress and of the ideals which lead men to happier lives and more useful activities. In the march of civilization law-makers of necessity follow rather than lead. The great inventions which arouse the imagination are the pioneers. The mariner's compass pointed the way over the unknown seas and gave assurance that whatever course was taken might be retraced. To it and the spirit of adventure it aroused the world owes the conversion of the ocean from an impassable barrier, separating the continents into different worlds, to a great universal thoroughfare connecting every port of every land with every other port. Following the dis-. covery of America and the settlement of Europeans along its coasts came colonial problems to the statesmen of Europe and the necessity of changing their theories of rulership by arbitrary force for a system affording the people of the colonies some measure of liberty in the regulation of their affairs. With no means of communication between the two continents but sailing vessels, there was such partial isolation as induced the growth of new customs, modes of life and ideas of social relations. In time these became so distinct and firmly established that the colonists would not submit to the ill-advised measures of the governments of the parent countries. The result was political separation and the organization in the western hemisphere of republican governments now numbering twenty-one.

Political separation has not been followed by isolation. Soon after it took place the relatively small and slow sailing vessels which had brought settlers by tens and by hundreds were supplemented by, the great steamships transporting them swiftly and safely by thousands. With the aid of the steamengines in use during the nineteenth century for the first time in the history of the world, Europe and America were drawn closer and closer together, till the manufacturing and commer

cial states of the former became dependent on the latter for a large part of their daily food and material for their industries. The stream of migration swelled until more than a million people a year crossed the Atlantic to make the United States their home. The discovery that instantaneous communication could be carried on by means of a broken electrical current transmitted over a wire, and that by insulation of the wire the current could be transmitted through the water, led to the laying of the great cables across the ocean. Through these, correspondence between governments and individuals became instantaneous. The breadth of the ocean interposed no obstacle and caused no delay in the transmission of messages. The many inventions through which the great printing presses were perfected and the organization of the press associations made possible the great daily papers giving to the public on all continents news of the events in every part of the world. Wireless telegraphy has now extended this instantaneous communication to and from the ships on the sea. Combining the use of the broken electrical current with that of the explosive force of ignited gas the long dreamed of horseless carriage and flying machine afford rapid transit over land and still more rapid movement through the air. The shore lines place limits to the ocean highway, but the thoroughfare of the air has no boundaries or limitations. Neither political boundaries nor natural obstacles bar the aviator's passage. National isolation is a condition of the past. All theories of government and of social organization based on it are obsolete. The world is one and the relations of its peoples must be adjusted accordingly. No man is entitled to the name of statesman who does not think in terms of the whole world and all its people. Inventive genius, private enterprise, and personal daring, have ushered in the new age of universal fellowship. Under this leadership the march of civilization moves on at a rapidly accelerated pace, obstructed more often than aided by the action of rulers and law-makers. The inspiration of these changed conditions points to moral advancement corresponding to the marvelous changes in the material world. Statesmen without clear vision of the moral as well as material aspects of the problems pre

sented to them in readjusting international relations have no right to sit in the conferences through which the new relations are to be adjusted.

The design of this work is to present as clearly and concisely as possible the ancient and modern conceptions of a nation, the attribute of ultimate sovereignty claimed for it, its composition. and boundaries, the laws and customs followed in international dealings and, more particularly, the modern progress in regulating international intercourse by international conventions, efforts to prevent war by arbitration and mediation, and to mitigate its barbarities when it does come. In order to present the exact situation existing at the outbreak of the great war the important general conventions which were then in force have been copied in full. These disclose the wonderfully rapid progress which has been made within the last half century in international cooperation on land and sea for the safety and welfare of all. The work closes with the peace treaty and the constitution of the league of nations.

The natural method of treating the subject of government and the relations of states is to begin at the beginning and trace the development of governmental systems down to the present time, but this cannot be done. Aristotle says "Now if any one would watch the parts of a state from the very first as they rise into existence, as in other matters, so here he would gain the truest view of the subject. . . . That society then, which nature has established for daily support, is a family. . . . But the society of many families, which was instituted for lasting and mutual advantage, is called a village, and a village is most naturally composed of the emigrant members of one family. . . . And hence by the way states were originally governed by kings, as the Barbarians now are; for they were composed of those who always were under kingly government. For every family is governed by the elder as are its branches, on account of their relationship; and this is what Homer says: "Then each his wife and child doth rule.

for in this scattered manner they formerly lived."

1 Aristotle's Politics, Book 1, Chapter 2.

The family taken by Aristotle as the starting point of his state consisted of a man and his wife, children, and slaves, whom he ruled. Following in the same line of thought Taylor says "The most important single result so far attained by the application of the comparative method to the study of political institutions is embodied in the discovery that the unit of organization in all the Aryan nations, from Ireland to Hindustan, was the naturally organized association of kindred—the family swelled into the clan-which in a settled state assumed the form of a village community."

The paternal theory of government, so prevalent in all Asiatic countries, is based on rulership of the family by the male ✓ head of it. Most writers are content to take the family as the starting-point of all political organization and to build tribe, gens, village, city and state on it as a foundation. Instances of such development in great number may be cited from Hebrew, Greek and Roman history, but when we consider that Greek and Roman history only reach back a scant hundred generations, and Hebrew records perhaps fifty more, and that all the records we have started after a period of intellectual activity sufficient and continuing long enough to produce a written language, it becomes evident that, in relation to the unnumbered ages since man appeared on earth, all history is modern. We have no really ancient history and know nothing about really old civilization. We have, however, records of the rise and fall of nations in many diverse ways in great number. Apparently the Egyptian and Chinese records reach farthest back of all, but of course they fail to reach the beginning, and start with a considerably advanced state of society which has been followed by many radical changes. Abraham went out of Ur, a city of the Chaldees, with his family, and settled in Canaan and became the founder of the Hebrew nation. He did not spring from primitive conditions, but came out of Chaldea with his family and herds to seek more favorable surroundings. His grandchildren, from whom sprang the twelve tribes of Israel, went into captivity in Egypt, 2 International Public Law, Taylor § 7.

3 Genesis XI-XII.

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