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been a respite to ascertain the pleasure of the Crown. But Sir Elijah Impey, an ordinary English lawyer with no wide views, insisted on the

strict letter of the law.

Speaking generally of Warren Hastings career in India, the author of the vindication claims to have written with careful candor, and with no other object than that of stating the real facts. He believes that all the real facts will stand the test of impartial inquiry. He submits that in no case can any proof of any crime be established against his client, but he recognizes that human nature is not absent from the history of Warren Hastings, that he is the last to suppose that in all of Hastings' transactions there was no error, no fault in design, no imperfection as to detail. Shortcomings there were, frailty perhaps, but these do not suggest crime unless one is to expel moral justice from a consideration of public acts. It is this want of moral justice which condemns Macaulay for the repeated assumptions of guilt in his estimate of Warren Hastings' character and services. The vindication deserves a popular audience, for it gathers into readable compass the three folio volumes of G. W. Forrest, in which are contained the daily minutes of the Council during Hastings' administration, and on which our new knowledge of Warren Hastings is largely based.

HAMILTON WRIGHT.

Principi di Diritto Internazionale: Parte Prima - Diritto internazionale Pubblico. Giulio Diena. Naples: Luigi Pierro, Publisher. 1908.

Price L. 6.

This very admirable hand-book of the Principles of Public International Law is one of a series of Manuals on legal and sociological subjects issued by the same publisher. Professor Diena proposes in a later volume to cover the field of Private International Law, emphatically asserting, however, that this course, adopted from motives of convenience, in no way signifies acquiescence in the theory that denies the intimate relationship of the two branches of the subject.

The present volume after dealing with the conception and the fundamental notions of the science, and briefly sketching its historical development, takes up in order its subjects, viz: the states and their rights; its

objects

territory, sea and rivers, as well as individuals in their rela

tions to penal and administrative international law; its instruments, including the executive authority of the state, diplomatic and consular officers; the acts of the state, out of which diplomatic obligations and

responsibilities arise; and finally, procedure and methods in peace and

war.

The arrangement of the matter is logical, the treatment of the topics. is, as a rule, clarity itself. The work is specifically designed as a handbook, and the citation of cases and of historical precedents is properly confined within narrow limits, and employed rather as a means of making clear and impressing the meaning of the principles stated than for the purpose of furnishing exhaustive references and authorities. Professor Diena does not fail to indicate the existence of differing opinions in cases. where the rules to be deduced from the facts are still in dispute, but from the necessity of the case controverted matters are argued and disposed of in a somewhat summary way.

The author openly declares himself at the outset an eclectic, unwilling either to base his science exclusively on purely philosophical and theoreti cal principles, or to accept the limitations of the positive method which claims to confine itself to the verification of existing facts and established rules. The rules that can be deduced from actual practice are to be checked by scientific principle, completed where insufficient, corrected where imperfect or antiquated, always preserving the distinction between positive and established law and principles founded on a rational or scientific basis. It may fairly be said that he preserves the balance, and errs neither in the direction of a loose idealism nor of mere adherence to precedent.

His view of the basis of International Law is fundamentally that of a community of nations possessed of common customs and ideals. It is the joint and reciprocal will of the several states that raises principles of natural right or of legal science to the status of rules of international law. It is in fact, though not in the crude sense, a theory of social compact.

In this view of it International Law is above all a progressive science, and an index of the advance of civilization. There are many instances where it becomes a duty to criticise the practice hitherto adopted but which is at variance with the great principles openly professed or tacitly admitted by all. There are other cases where practice differs, where special interests have led one nation or another into questionable positions, and there is room to condemn or to approve. In all such cases we may trust to find Professor Diena moderate in his statements, but progressive and sane in his views.

There are questions raised and discussed which hardly lend themselves to the summary treatment possible, such for example, as the right of forcible annexation, or the right to a plebiscite on the part of the population of a territory about to be transferred. On the latter head particularly, the very forcible practical objections alleged do not satisfy the mind on the subject, because the moral argument (valid or not) against transferring men as if they were chattels from one allegiance to another, has not been radically discussed. And thus the whole outcome of these matters is left in something of a haze.

It is quite otherwise when the author comes to treat of more specific questions, as for example, the treatment of the inhabitants of a region occupied by the enemy's troops, or the Monroe Doctrine. On this last subject we are not surprised to find him taking a rather unsympathetic attitude. Originally, as a particular application of the doctrine of nonintervention, the rule laid down was fairly well justified; in its developments and extensions of recent years, it is, we are told, to be regarded as a mere rule of political conduct adopted by the United States, in no sense a rule of international law, and in some cases leading to action contrary to its best established principles.

In regard to political crimes for which extradition is usually refused, the author pronounces decidedly in favor of the elimination of anarchical crimes from the privileged class, and also of a rule by which the assassination of the head of a foreign state, or a member of his family, should not be regarded as political. It need not be said that there is much to be alleged in favor of both these suggestions and some practical difficulties to be met.

Perhaps one of the most suggestive chapters of the work is that on Administrative International Law, in which are detailed the manifold. interests that have in one form or another come under the joint care of the civilized states. In this direction lies the hope of the future. Already in a treatise on International Law, the section devoted to the laws of war begins to shrink notably, and doubtless Professor Diena would join cordially in the wish that the place to which the subject is entitled may still grow less.

There is one serious criticism to make

on the absence of a full index

- which may possibly, however, be intended to appear in the succeeding

volume.

JAMES BARCLAY.

American Foreign Policy. By a Diplomatist. Boston and New York. Houghton Mifflin Company. 1909. pp. vii, 192.

This book might more properly be called "Suggestions concerning future American Foreign Policy," for in it the author advances his ideas of the foreign policy which he thinks ought hereafter to be adopted by the United States. In the elaboration of his proposed policy, he considers, in separate chapters, the questions which arise out of our relations with the Philippines, with the Latin Republics, with Europe in consequence of the Monroe Doctrine, with the separate European states, with the Far East, and with the Near East. He has a final chapter in which he advocates an organization of the State Department in a manner which he regards as necessary in order that his proposed policy may be carried into effect.

The main thesis of the book, stated in the first chapter, is that our traditional policies are outworn, and that a new foreign policy, based on new principles, is necessary. This proposed new policy the author calls "the policy of understandings." The following quotation (pp. 13-14) will explain the meaning of this expression:

The most striking development in modern diplomacy has been the vast extension given within quite recent times to the system of arrangements and understandings which now link together the nations of Europe. These differ radically from the eighteenth-century idea of alliances, which were mainly offensive in purpose, even when restricted in their liability. The new conception, on the contrary, is eminently pacific in character, and limited in application to comparatively narrow ends. It aims within certain determined regions to preserve actual conditions and to eliminate possible causes of conflict, chiefly in colonial spheres, by taking cognizance of the special or mutual interests of the powers concerned, and lending to the preservation of such agreements the force that is derived by co-operation of effort.

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The author advises an immediate application by this nation of this policy of understandings, in order to forestall an imagined hostile coalition. He proposes that the United States enter into an understanding with Great Britain and also with France, though he regards Great Britain as most important according to which the United States would guarantee to these nations their sovereignty of their present possessions in the Pacific Ocean, and they, in return, would guarantee the integrity of the whole American continent (including, of course, the integrity of this nation itself), the neutrality of the Panama Canal, and our sovereignty of our possessions in the Pacific, and would in addition acknowledge that this nation has a sphere of influence and jurisdiction,

warranting it in active and permanent intervention to such extent as it may deem to be necessary, from the southern border of Mexico to the river Orinoco. He considers that by such an arrangement we should secure an international recognition of the Monroe Doctrine. He also asserts that such an arrangement would not entangle us in European affairs.

That this nation should ask any foreign nations to guarantee its own integrity and that of the Latin Republics, is, it would seem, inconceivable. But, if we can suppose such an action on its part, it is, it would seem, inconceivable that any nations would guarantee the integrity of this nation without their own being guaranteed in return. It is equally inconceivable that the United States should ever ask any foreign nation. to recognize the Monroe Doctrine in consideration of a quid pro quo. This would be an abolition of that doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine is a permanent international fact or principle, and is not subject to bargain. and sale. It has frequently been acted upon by foreign nations, and has received the voluntary recognition of the society of nations. On account of it, France withdrew from Mexico, and Great Britain submitted the Venezuelan boundary question to arbitration. It is the basis of the existing agreement between the American Republics for the advancement of their mutual social and economic interests, under the Bureau of American Republics as a permanent secretariat. In late years the position of the Monroe Doctrine as an international fact has become still more accentuated. Dr. Andrew D. White, in his Autobiography, has given a graphic account of the presentation of that Doctrine by the American delegates to the Hague Conference of 1899, as a reservation to the Convention adopted by that Conference, and of its reception without dissent. The adoption of the Drago Doctrine by the Latin Republics further committed them, to the Monroe Doctrine, since it is a matter of common knowledge that the former Doctrine depends upon the latter. The acceptance by the Hague Conference of 1907 of the principle of the Drago Doctrine necessarily implied a recognition by that Conference of the Monroe Doctrine as an international fact. Dr. James Brown Scott, in his recent book on "The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and

1907," well says:

The convention for the limitation of force in the collection of contract debts is a contract, entered into by the nations of the world, and, at one and the same time, a solemn and formal recognition of the Monroe Doctrine. Through Dr. Drago, the Monroe Doctrine has made its formal entry into public law as distinct from national policy.

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