one day have to be considered. There is need of a free examination of a mass of traditional rules or customs which operate harshly against neutrals, and certain, if they were ever put into operation on a large scale, to be resented. I refer in particular to the rules affecting the sale of ships or goods during war. In time of peace people may agree that the property in such, whether on land or on water, whether stationary or in transit, may pass at any moment. True, the municipal law may require formalities as a condition of valid transfer; these complied with, the real intention of the parties, broadly stated, governs the transaction. In a time of war neutrals supplying belligerents with goods (I exclude for the moment contraband) might and often do agree that the property in them should not pass, that the risk should be the seller's, until they reach a belligerent port. Or belligerents who own ships might and often do when war breaks out dispose of such as are at sea to neutral owners. Examined in a court of law, such transactions would indeed be viewed with suspicion; the strict observance of obligatory forms would suggest some unavowed design or some secret trust. If, however, the parties meant what they said-if there was a real, not a formal, sale-their acts would stand. But this would not do for a belligerent, accustomed to have it all his own way; in some Prize Courts a different rule is introduced; a transaction is declared to be 'fraudulent' which may in good sense and morals not be fraudulent; the intention of the parties may be disregarded-and why? Because otherwise, as is cynically remarked, the belligerent would have little to seize-the wolf would have nothing to pick up if the sheepfold might be closed. Our courts have adopted a somewhat more liberal principle, though, considering the difficulties placed in the way of a neutral claimant proving his case, the concession does not in practice amount to much. I note that the Supreme Court of the United States has lately declined to follow the old rule. It is possible that most civilised countries would do the same. But it is scarcely safe to leave the matter in the present state of uncertainty. It is to be hoped that at some Conference there will be a united condemnation of the old form of the rule-'the result,' to quote an American judge, ' of political expediency, and as evincing a determination in the British Councils to destroy all commerce with their enemy rather than as rules of international law'-and that in future the validity of such transfers will be always a question of fact to be decided without any bias either way, suspicion and presumption not being substituted for proof.

Many other questions of great importance to neutrals are ripe

See Arnould on Marine Insurance, 7th ed., s. 659, and Wheaton, 4th ed., p. 50, as to English and American rule. A similar doctrine prevails as to mortgages. As to the French jurisprudence, which apparently follows the old rule, Duboc on Le Droit de Visite, p. 92, and Dupuis, Le Droit de la Guerre Maritime, p. 117.

• See 176 U.S. 568.

for discussion, such, for example, as the restrictions which belligerents may impose upon the use of wireless telegraphy by neutrals in the vicinity of the scene of warlike operations. What is urgent seems to be a full consideration of the rights and duties of neutrals ; a Conference of a kind hitherto unknown; one in which for the first time the neutral side of the questions above mentioned should be stated and should receive due weight, and concerted measures be taken to see that neutrals' interests are respected, and the necessities of peace as well as those of war recognised. Such a Conference might leave many matters untouched or unsettled, and yet give the world by peaceable discussion more than the Armed Neutrality of the past ever promised.

JOHN MACDONELL.

1904

ENGLAND, GERMANY, AND AUSTRIA

It is often assumed that English public men who explain the aims and devices of the Foreign Office at Berlin are animated by feelings of hostility towards the German people. There is no warrant for this assumption. It would be more reasonable to accuse them of overrating the political tenacity of the Germans and the solidity of the German Empire. That Empire, as at present constituted, is apparently threatened with serious trouble. But when the dangers which menace it become pressing, German statesmen know they can be conjured away in the outburst of enthusiasm with which war with England would be welcomed from one end of their country to the other. The attack on Denmark in 1864, the raid on Austria in 1866, the war with France in 1870, were all organised by Bismarck to checkmate revolutionary movements at home, and to establish the present German Empire. The war with England, for which preparations are now as openly made as they were previous to 1870 for the war with France, will be undertaken with a view to consolidate and expand that Empire. Those who wish to prevent this war are merely obeying the call of duty when they urge the English people to make it impossible. The initial step in this direction is to provide for the maintenance of the Navy in such a state of efficiency and strength as would render a German attack on this country too hazardous to be attempted, even if it were supported by powerful allies. To do so is certainly not beyond the means of Great Britain.

It is only natural that leaders of opinion in Germany should exhort their countrymen to strive with might and main to win the foremost position in the world. They believe that, to gain this end, the power of Great Britain must be broken, and they do not think this would be so difficult a task as it appears to Englishmen. They hold that the British Empire stands in the way of German world-power, and that the English people of to-day have not the heart to defend it. Their belief is confirmed by the conduct and speeches of persons who occupy positions of responsibility at Westminster, and by indications of a feverish desire to reduce and hamper the fighting strength of the country, both by sea and land. This found

expression in the debates on the Estimates during the last Session of Parliament, and was particularly inopportune because complications might at any moment arise out of the war in the Far East. A general impression was created that Great Britain did not take seriously her moral obligations to Japan, and that when the timecame for arranging the terms of peace she would not be ready to give efficient support to her gallant and high-spirited ally. This has tended to confirm the conviction of Germans that England is unworthy of her place among the nations, that the simple, stern patriotism which enabled her to acquire it is now paralysed by the intrigues of political faction, her powers of endurance and selfsacrifice weakened through habits of luxury, and her sense of national honour impaired by the corroding action of cosmopolitan finance.. It seems clear to them that the break-up of the British Empire would be followed by the creation of a greater Germany in Europe and beyond the seas. They are not to be blamed if, holding these views, they try to realise their ambitions. We, on our side, may possess our souls in the certain hope that the great living forces of the nation will, at the appointed hour, place some Chatham or Cromwell at the head of affairs. This hope is strengthened by the faith. that the heart of England is as stout and true to-day as when she crushed Napoleon, defeated Louis the Fourteenth, or when the great. Elizabethan mariners sailed for the Spanish Main.

sea.

Germany has a population of about 60,000,000, but large numbers. are annually lost to her flag. To hinder this, she seeks to extend her influence in Europe and acquire extensive possessions beyond the To realise these aims, she must prepare for collision with England, possibly with the United States, and certainly with Japan if the policy inaugurated by the seizure of Kiao-chau is persevered. in. She therefore requires a fleet which would make her supremeupon the ocean. To create a navy of such strength it is essential that Holland should be brought within the German sphere of influence, and become for practical purposes a vassal State of the Empire. Bismarck himself acknowledged as much to Beust.1

Many people in this country persuade themselves that the next movement of German expansion will be in the direction of Austria, that being, they contend, the line of least resistance. But it is almost sure that aggrandisement of Germany at the expense of Austria would provoke the gravest international complications. Neither France, Italy, nor, above all, Russia, could allow it without fatal damage to their influence, and England would hardly look on with indifference at the establishment of German power in the Adriatic. I am convinced, moreover, that, notwithstanding formidable separatist tendencies in Austria, the forces of cohesion in the dominions of the House of Hapsburg are stronger than most people imagine.

Beust, Aus drei Viertel-Jahrhunderten, vol. ii. p. 481.

The situation in Austria is, no doubt, full of danger and difficulty, but the true character of the perils that threaten her can only be understood by those who have mastered the questions that agitate the political feelings of Germans, Czechs, Magyars, and the other nationalities that compose the Empire. Everyone remembers the old epigram, 'Bella gerant alii, Tu, felix Austria, nube,' but few reflect that the Austrian Empire is the outcome of marriages, heritages, and artificial arrangements by which German counties, Italian principalities, and kingdoms like Bohemia were joined together. The link that bound them was allegiance to a common sovereign. The Tyrolese obeyed the Count of Tyrol, the Austrians the Archduke of Austria, who happened to be the same person, and was also King of Bohemia. This personage held, however, an exceptionally exalted position. He was for centuries, with short interruptions, the Head of the Holy Roman Empire of the German. nation. There was a moment in the history of these countries at which they might have been welded into a close political union. This was at the time of the Reformation. The most ardent admirer of the Reformation will hardly now deny that it had many drawbacks. It paralysed the movement, represented by such men as Erasmus and Colet, the Dean of St. Paul's, one of the last and greatest of the ecclesiastics of the old pre-reformed Church of England, of whom William of Wykeham, William of Waynflete, and Archbishop Chicheley were such magnificent types. The Humanist influence would have gradually but thoroughly destroyed superstitions and obscurantist opinions, which derived fresh life and strength from the action of Luther. In Germany, however, the Reformation was a national movement in the deepest sense of the term, and it was a far-reaching misfortune for that country that Charles the Fifth did not grasp the situation. He neither appreciated Luther when he met him at Worms in 1521, nor did he gauge the forces which were working for the Reformer.2

The Reformation took as firm a hold on the countries which compose the present Austrian Empire as it did anywhere else. This is shown in the secret reports made to Rome by the confidential agents of Clement the Seventh and Paul the Third. The priesthood seemed at one time likely to die out. In one Austrian See only five priests were ordained in four years. For over twenty years no candidate from the University in Vienna presented himself for ordination.3 The Nuncio, Vergerio, could find no candidates for the priesthood in Bohemia. Breslau became entirely Protestant. Instead of meeting this movement with intellectual and spiritual weapons, the House of Hapsburg, under evil counsel, suppressed it with the arm of the

4

2 For what took place at Worms, Wednesday and Thursday, the 17th and 18th of April, 1521, see Armstrong's Life of Charles V., i. chapter 3.

Ranke, Römischen Päpste, ii. 14.

4

Armstrong, Charles V., i. 319, 320.