in the East Indies, including Java with an area and population many times greater than that of the Netherlands, the Moluccas, and large parts of Sumatra, Borneo and Celebes, besides smaller islands. It also has Dutch Guiana and Curacoa and small island possessions in the West Indies. In international dealings it speaks for the people of all these possessions.

Other European states are accorded sovereign rights over distant possessions by the consensus of the nations.

In Asia, China, Japan, and Persia have extensive dominions, mainly of contiguous territory and inhabited by homogeneous people. The South American nations all have compact possessions with a very large element in their population descended from aboriginal stock.

The exercise of sovereign powers over such widely scattered possessions shows how very far the modern sovereign state differs from that defined by Aristotle. The nation is not confined to contiguous territory, nor is it restricted in its citizenship to one race of people. All races are included in the citizenship of the United States, Africans constituting about one tenth of the whole. The people of European stock are the dominant element in substantially all the American republics, British and northern European in the United States and Canada, and Spanish and Portuguese in Mexico, Central and South America. It is the European nations that have assumed guardianship over so many of the islands and so much of the great continents of Asia and Africa.

While it is a fundamental principle of international law that the sovereignty of each nation within its territorial limits is absolute and exclusive, the law affords no guarantee of the continuance of this sovereignty, and each nation must maintain it as best it can against all forces within and without. Conflicting claims of dominion have been most prolific causes of war throughout all the history of the race. Any nation, on any pretext, or for any purpose, might wage war to acquire dominion over the territory of another in whole or in part. No matter how slight the justification for it might be, nor whether any justification was attempted, the status and rights of belligerents were at once accorded equally to the opposing

nations. The leading purpose of the League of Nations is to require the settlement of all international controversies by pacific methods, to protect the weak against the strong, and require that right rather than might shall prevail in the determination of international questions relating to the exercise of sovereign powers.

ALIENS AND ABSENTEES

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Migrations of people from one country to another with a view to permanent residence, foreign travel on business or for pleasure, and temporary sojourns of all kinds in a foreign country give rise to many questions of both international and domestic law. An alien is one who does not, either by nativity or voluntary adoption, owe allegiance to the government within whose territory he is.23 Though in a foreign country, he is still a citizen or subject of his native government. The movements of people from Europe to America during the last century have resulted in building a composite nation in which are represented not only all European races, but also the African and Asiatic. In the year 1910 there were 13,515,886 foreign born people in the United States. Of these the greatest number 2,501,333, came from Germany; Russia and Finland, 1,732,462, and 1,352,257 from Ireland. While a very large majority of all of them came from Europe there were 4,664 from India, 67,744 from Japan and 56,756 from China." Most of these people came to America with the intention of becoming citizens, and very many of them have been naturalized in accordance with the laws of the United States and are now accorded all the rights of citizens. Others have declared their intentions to become citizens and are accorded in some of the states the right to vote, while the rest are still properly classed as aliens. No other country contains such an intermixture of people, but the Central and South American States are also open to foreign settlement and have a large foreign element in their population. Native Americans are now to be found 23 2 Cyc 83. Abbott Law Dic.

24 Statistical Abstract 1917, p. 56.

25 Statistical Abstract 1917, p. 59 to 64.

in most, if not quite, every country on earth. All these migratory people are deeply interested in the questions as to the duties they owe to the country of their birth and to that of their domicil, and also in the question as to the protection they have a right to demand from the governments of both countries. As we have seen, no country is bound to admit to its citizenship, or even to temporary domicil within its territories when under no treaty obligation to do so, the people of foreign countries. But when it does admit them they become subject to its laws and entitled to the protection of them. As to the security of their persons aliens are entitled to the full protection of the municipal law of the country in which they are domiciled, and may resort to its courts for redress when their rights are violated. An alien friend may sue and be sued in the proper courts of the country to the same extent as a citizen.26 This rule may be safely stated very broadly as to aliens whether domiciled or non-resident, in the courts of the United States, and Great Britain, and, though it is still within the power of a nation to deny aliens the use of its courts, the substantially universal custom is to give the same consideration to their demands as is given to those of citizens. Where the courts of the country refuse redress for injuries, or to enforce rights, the alien is entitled to the protection of his home government, provided he has done nothing causing him to forfeit the right to such protection. The right to acquire and hold personal property of all kinds is now very generally recognized in all countries." This liberality has not always obtained in the countries of Europe. Feudal lords were slow to give up the practice of plundering foreign merchants under a claim termed droit d'aubaine, by extraordinary taxation of foreigners and the confiscation of the personal estate left by a de

20 Eng. Ramkes senseat v. Baker, 1 Atk. 51. Pisani v. Lawson, 6 Bing. N. C. 90. Hepburn v. Dunlop, 1 Wheat. (U. S.) 179. Taylor v. Carpenter, 23 Fed. Cas. No. 13784. 3 Storey 458. France, "An Alien shall enjoy in France the same civil rights as those granted to French people by the treaties of the nations to which such aliens belong." Civil Code § 11.

27 Hughes v. Edwards, 9 Wheat. (U. S.) 489. Eng. Calvin's case, 7 Coke 2. Fourdrin v. Gowdey, 3 Myl. & K. 383.

31

ceased foreigner within their dominions.28 To put an end to this practice special treaties were negotiated by the United States with Bavaria in 1846,29 Hesse, 1845,30 Nassau, 1847,31 Saxony, 1846,32 and Wurttemberg, 1844.33 The commercial nations of Europe were necessarily far more liberal in their treatment of foreigners.

Aliens also have substantially the same right to sell and transfer personal property during life and to transmit it by will or inheritance that citizens have.34 Bequests to non-resident aliens of chattels are valid.35

37

36

A different rule prevails as to real property. At common law both in England and the United States an alien cannot take title to land by inheritance, nor can title to land pass by inheritance through the medium of an ancestor who was an alien. If a citizen dies and his next heir is an alien who cannot take, the inheritance goes to the next heir who is competent to take as if no such alien had ever existed." At common law an alien may acquire land by voluntary conveyance from the owner, but he cannot hold it as against the state." No one but the state can question the alien's title. The whole theory of ownership of a part of the face of the earth is essentially different from that of ownership of movables. The nation asserts and maintains sovereignty over its territorial possessions until overthrown or driven out of them, or until it transfers its sovereignty to another, but no matter how nations come and go or people multiply or die out, the land re

39

28 Grotius Lib. II, cap. vi, § 14. Vattel II. 8, §112. Taylor § 200.

29 Senate Documents, 2d Session 61st Congress, 47-56.

30 Senate Documents, 2d Session 61st Congress, 47, 947.

31 Senate Documents, 2d Session 61st Congress, 48, 1231.

32 Senate Documents, 2d Session 61st Congress, 48, 1610. 33 Senate Documents, 2d Session 61st Congress, 48, 1893. 342 Corpus Juris, 1069.

35 Craig v. Leslie, 3 Wheat. 563.

36 Blythe v. Hinckley 180 U. S. 333. Eng. Doe v. Acklam 2 B. & C. 779.

37 Levy v. McCortee, 6 Peters, 102.

38 Corpus Juris, 2 p. 1059.

39 Orr v. Ogden, 4 Wheat. 543. Wallace v. Adamson, 10 U. C. C. P. 338. 40 Manuel v. Wulff, 152 U. S. 505.

mains for whomsoever is able to maintain mastery over it. Private ownership is a more immediate and definite dominion, but like that of the state, it may be transferred or lost, yet the land remains, whatever the fate of the owner. Title to land, therefore, whether in the sense of the political dominion of the state or private ownership by the individual, is strictly a creature of positive human law. As against the outside world the nation asserts and maintains its political control. Within its boundaries it determines as it pleases who may acquire private dominion of its land, the nature and duration of such dominion, and all the other questions relating to land tenure. Chattel property is essentially different. Its value may be a human creation and readily destroyed. It is ordinarily movable, so that the owner may take it with him or keep it where he pleases on such part of the earth as he is allowed to use. Its value may be temporary and quickly lost by decay, or durable indefinitely so long as possession is retained, as in the precious metals and durable works of art. There is quite general uniformity in the views of the people of all nations as to the rights of possessors of personal property, but much diversity of laws and customs as to its disposition after the death of the owner. Upon this subject the most general rule that can be safely asserted is that the law of the sovereignty in which the chattels are at the time of the death of the owner will determine the disposition to be made. of them." The law of the domicil of the owner is usually allowed to determine who are the distributees and their respective shares. In the exercise of their powers of taxation the state of the decedent's domicil and that where the goods are at the time of his death may impose taxes on the property, unless under treaty obligation not to do so. In the United States the laws with reference to the descent of real property and the distribution of the personal estate are exclusively the work of the different states and there is great diversity in the rules adopted by them. There is entire uniformity, however, in their acceptance of the principles that the law of the situs 41 Hamilton v. Dallas, 38 L. T. Rep. N. S. 215.

42

42 14 Cyc. 189.