ambassador protested that such a course would be unusual. Great Britain refrained from issuing the declaration, apparently considering the revolted protectorate in the same category with a revolting colony, or other dependency. The French, however, observed the laws of war in their treatment of the insurgents. The English law and practice maintains that insurrection in a dependent community "is waging war upon the queen," and that this is an act which may involve annexation of the revolting territory. England has, however, treated these uprisings, as in the case of Manipur, 1891, as crimes to which the penal law extended, justifying thus the execution of the leaders of the revolt as criminals. In the case of the Abyssinian revolt of 1895, Italy announced, on the twenty-fifth of July, that no foreign state had relations to or right to interfere with the insurgents. Great Britain seems to have taken a like position, at first, with reference to the South African republic, indicating that she would not view with favor any foreign propositions touching her attitude toward that republic; indeed, that there was no war in South Africa. It is evident from such cases that the parent state may prefer to admit the existence of an insurrection while not acknowledging the existence of belligerency. Policy may also influence a foreign state to prefer to admit the existence of an insurrection rather than to recognize belligerency. President McKinley, in his message of December 6, 1897, thus summarizes the matter as regards Cuba:

Turning to the practical aspects of a recognition of belligerency and reviewing its inconveniences and positive dangers, still further pertinent considerations appear. In the code of nations there is no such thing as a naked recognition of belligerency unaccompanied by the assumption of international neutrality. Such recognition without more will not confer upon either party to a domestic conflict a status not therefore actually possessed or affect the relation of either party to other states. The act of recognition usually takes the form of a solemn proclamation of neutrality which recites the de facto condition of belligerency as its motive. It announces a domestic law of neutrality in the declaring state. It assumes the international obligations of a neutral in the presence of a public state of war. It warns all the citizens and others within the jurisdiction of the proclaimant that they violate those rigorous obligations at their own peril and cannot expect to be shielded from the consequences. The rights of visit and search on the seas and seizure of vessels and cargoes and contraband of war and good prize under admiralty law must under international law be admitted as a legitimate consequence of a proclamation of belligerency. While according to the

equal belligerent rights defined by public law to each party in our ports disfavors would be imposed on both, which while nominally equal would weigh heavily in behalf of Spain herself. Possessing a navy and controlling the ports of Cuba her maritime rights could be asserted not only for the military investment of the island but up to the margin of our own territorial waters, and a condition of things would exist for which the Cubans within their own domain could not hope to create a parallel; while its creation through aid or sympathy from within our domain would be even more impossible than now, with the additional obligations of international neutrality we would perforce assume.

Or, as summarized by Professor John Bassett Moore, at that time: Moreover, the Cuban insurgents can at the present time purchase arms and munitions of war; they and their friends and sympathizers can go and come, unarmed and unorganized, to take part in the conflict; they can sell their securities to any one who will buy them. More than this they could not do, if their belligerency were recognized, unless they had ships on the ocean. They could neither employ persons in the United States to serve in their forces, nor fit out and arm vessels in our ports, nor set on foot hostile expeditions from our territory. On the other hand, Spain would be immediately invested by international law, as well as by the treaty of 1795, with the international rights of belligerency, which she has so far not claimed, including the right of visitation and search on the high seas, and the capture and condemnation of our vessels for violations of neutrality. It would enable Spain practically to put an end to the transportation of munitions of war for the insurgents. It would place under Spanish supervision all that vast commerce which passes through the waters adjacent to Cuba. (21 Forum, 297.)

In other words, a foreign state which recognizes the belligerency of a party to a domestic conflict thereby changes the status of the parties concerned, giving to the parties in the conflict a war status with its obligations and duties and assuming for itself the rights and obligations of neutrality. Prior to such recognition, if the parent state does not recognize the existence of war, the foreign state is largely judge of its relations to and conduct toward the parties to the domestic conflict. There may be political, commercial, geographical, or other conditions which make it inexpedient for a foreign state to recognize an insurgent party as a belligerent.

It is evident that there may be many reasons why a foreign state would be disinclined to recognize insurgents as belligerents while at the same time the foreign states might be obliged to take cognizance of the existence of the insurrection. It is the fact that this status of insurrection brings new obligations to states and in some cases advantages.

There may also be reasons which make the parent state reluctant to recognize its insurgent subjects as belligerents, thus giving them full war status at home and abroad. Sometimes the parent state has endeavored before any recognition of belligerency to prescribe the attitude of foreign states toward its rebellious subjects. This has been a common procedure on the part of the states where revolutions have been frequent. Many questions were raised in 1885 during the insurrection in the United States of Colombia. The President of Colombia decreed:

That as the vessels of the opposing party in the port of Cartagena were flying the Colombian flag, it was in violation of right and placed that party beyond the pale of international law.

The United States refused to recognize the validity of the decree as affecting the relations of its officers to the insurgent party and Great Britain took a similar stand. Hall has well said:

It is impossible to pretend that acts which are done for the purpose of setting up a legal state of things and which may in fact have already succeeded in setting it up, are piratical for want of external recognition of their validity, when the grant of that recognition is properly dependent in the main upon the existence of such a condition of affairs as can only be produced by the very acts in question.

Yet acts of the insurgents are liable to such penalties as the parent state may inflict. Foreign states do not generally take extreme measures against insurgents. They do not permit visit and search on the high seas, as the obligation to submit to this interference with the freedom of commerce rests upon a neutral only when there is war, and until there is war there can be no neutral in the sense of international law. The right of visit and search is of course denied to the parent state on the same grounds as to the insurgent.

As regards relations of insurgents and parent state it may be said that they must so far as possible observe the rules of civilized warfare. This is expedient in order that the parent state may maintain the respect of sister states and in order that the insurgents may, if successful, be more readily admitted into the family of nations.

It is fully established that decrees of the parent state putting those in insurrection against it beyond the pale of law, or condemning them to unusual treatment, are not binding upon foreign states. Such a decree may be regarded as an admission by the parent state of the

existence of an insurrection within its borders. The legitimate government cannot in any way throw the burden of executing its decrees upon a foreign state. Even its decrees of closure in time of insurrection must be supported by sufficient force to render them effective.

The United States was early in the Civil War forced to give up the claims that the confederate cruisers were piratical and that other forces were bands of outlaws.

Attempts were also made in 1885 to induce the United States to prevent the sale of arms to the Colombian insurgents, but Mr. Bayard said in a letter of March 25, 1885:

That the existence of a rebellion in Colombia does not authorize the public officials of the United States to obstruct ordinary commerce in arms between citizens of this country and the rebellious or other parts of the territory of the Republic of Colombia.

Attempts have also been made by the parent state to obtain advantages of a blockade without the obligations of war through a proclamation declaring ports held by insurgents closed. Foreign states have, however, usually taken the position that such decrees are of no effect and the ports in the hands of the insurgents are closed only to the extent to which an effective force may physically prevent entrance.

The parent state cannot prescribe the attitude which a foreign state shall assume toward insurgents. It is, however, within the competence of the foreign state to determine its own attitude toward insurgents so far as this may accord with the laws of humanity and its obligations to a friendly state. The foreign state has full right to deny to the insurgents the right to exercise any belligerent rights toward its subjects. A foreign state, for example, would not be under any obligation to allow the exercise of the right of visit or search of its vessels and if its vessels were seized by insurgents, the war vessels of the foreign state might rescue them on the high seas. Admiral Benham, at the time of the Brazilian revolt of 1893-94 took a position which has been generally approved. He maintained that American merchant vessels in the harbor of Rio Janeiro were liable to risk if they came within the field of actual hostile operations during the continuance of an engagement, but that interference by insurgents with legitimate movements of American merchant vessels at other times would not be permitted.

A foreign state would not permit the parent state to prescribe the attitude which the foreign government should assume toward its insur

gent subjects. A foreign state would not permit the insurgents to prescribe what attitude the foreign government should assume toward other parties involved in the insurrection. Probably the most frequent action of this kind on the part of the insurgents, is seen in the attempt of the insurgents to proclaim blockades. It is clear, however, that blockade is a war measure and involves the existence of courts to pass upon its violations and to decree penalties. In absence of such responsible courts a foreign state would not be under obligation to respect such insurgent proclamation. No more would a foreign state permit insurgents to visit and search its merchant vessels on the high seas or to make captures. As Secretary Hay said:

It seems important to discriminate between the claim of a belligerent to exercise quasi-sovereign rights in accordance with the tenets of international law and the conduct of hostilities by an insurgent against the titular government.

The formal right of the sovereign extends to acts on the high seas, while an insurgent's right to cripple his enemy by any usual hostile means is essentially domestic within the territory of the titular sovereign whose authority is contested. To deny to an insurgent the right to prevent the enemy from receiving material aid cannot well be justified without denying the right of revolution. If foreign vessels carrying aid to the enemies of the insurgents are interfered with within the territorial limits, that is apparently a purely military act incident to the conduct of hostilities, and, like any other insurgent interference with foreign property within the theater of insurrection, is effected at the insurgent's risk.

He also maintained that

within the territorial limits of the country, the right to prevent the access of supplies to their enemy is practically the same on water as on land-a defensive act in the line of hostility to the enemy. But in no case would the insurgents be justified in treating as an enemy a neutral vessel navigating the internal waters-their only right being, as hostiles, to prevent the access of supplies to their domestic enemy. The exercise of this power is restricted to the precise end to be accomplished. No right of confiscation or destruction of foreign property in such circumstances could well be recognized, and any act of injury so committed against foreigners would necessarily be at the risk of the insurgents. (Letter to Secretary of Navy, November 15, 1902.)

The Institute of International Law, at its twentieth session in September, 1901, referring to the relation of a foreign power to an insurgent blockade adopted the following resolution: