Les Deux Conférences de la Paix, 1899 et 1907. Recueil des Textes arrêtés par ces Conférences et de différents Documents complémentaires. With prefatory note. By Louis Renault, Member of the Institute, Professor of the Law Faculty of the University of Paris and in the School of Political Sciences, delegate from France to both of the conferences. Arthur Rousseau, 14 Rue Soufflot, Paris, publisher. 1908. pp. 219.

It is peculiarly appropriate that M. Louis Renault should edit for the student, general reader, and man of affairs the various texts of the two Hague conferences, for tradition credits him with a large share in the preparation of the documents formulated by the First Hague Conference, and it is within the personal knowledge of the reviewer that every text adopted by the Second Conference passed under his critical eye, and that not only was each text revised by his hand, but that many of the texts as well as the felicitous preambles were conceived in his own busy brain. M. Bourgeois paid him no idle compliment when he publicly proclaimed him the "Rédacteur-en-chef de la Conférence."

The aim, purpose, and scope of the little volume are so clearly set forth by M. Renault in the prefactory note that it would be ungracious not to yield the floor to him. In translated form it is as follows:

For use in teaching, I have thought it necessary to gather together the texts adopted by the two peace conferences, as well as the circulars which preceded them. I have added to them the documents which are naturally associated with the work of The Hague, such as the Declaration of Paris, 1856, the Declaration of St. Petersburg, the conventions of Geneva. The collection forms the beginning, and no negligible beginning, of the great work of codifying public international law, undertaken at Paris half a century ago, and which, I do not doubt, will be continued with determination. Doubtless all the acts here brought together are not, at present, expressly accepted by all the states of the world. It can be said that certain countries, for various reasons, have not yet adhered to the Declaration of Paris, although it has the approval given by lapse of time. The powers represented at the last conference have not all signed as yet the conventions which they helped to make; several have wished to profit by the long interval allowed for signature. That has only a passing interest. From the point of view which I take that is, from the scientific and also political point of view - the work of The Hague, taken as a whole, is henceforth the firm basis of theoretical and practical international law; that is why I have thought it useful to make it easily accessible, not only to students, but to all those who are interested in well-regulated international relations.

The documents at the conclusion of this little volume are of only historic interest; for one, "The instructions of the United States," concerns one country only, and the other, "The project of Brussels of 1874," has never been approved

by the powers. They have, nevertheless, geat importance. The great service which the United States has rendered to the world in initiating a careful regulation of the customs of land warfare must be recognized. The Brussels Conference did not arrive at any immediate result, but it rendered easy the work of codification which the First Peace Conference was able to consummate. It is not uninteresting to compare the solutions given in these various documents. I have decided to limit myself to texts of an official character; otherwise I would have added the excellent little Manual of the Laws of War, prepared in 1880 by the Institute of International Law, and founded upon the project of Brussels.

I cherish the hope that if anyone takes the trouble to study the texts collected here, which is easy and within the possibility of everyone, instead of glancing merely at the title of the conference, he will agree that the work done at The Hague by the conscientious efforts of the delegates from forty-four countries, if not perfect, is worth more than superficial criticism and condescending irony.

11th January, 1899,

The two Russian circulars of the 12th (24th) August, 1898, and 30th December, 1898, show that the idea of the conference originated with Russia, and the two American circulars of the 21st of October and the 16th of December, 1904, show as conclusively that the Second Conference originated with the President of the United States, which facts sufficiently and accurately appear in the preamble of the final act of the 29th of July, 1899, and the preamble of the 18th of October, 1907. The little volume can not be too highly recommended, and it is hoped that a work of the same kind may shortly appear in English.

JAMES BROWN SCOTT.

L'Oeuvre de la deuxième Conférence de la Paix. Exposé juridique et texte des conventions. By Antoine Ernst, Chief of Division in the Ministery of Justice, secretary of the second plenipotentiary of Belgium at the Second Peace Conference. Misch and Thron, Brussels; Marcel Riviere, Paris; 1908. pp. 175, iii.

The purpose of this little book is entirely different from that of M. Renault. The latter contains the texts of the two conferences; the former the text of the second. The one is prepared primarily for academic use and instruction; the other is meant for the public, more particularly the Belgium public, and aims in a brief but comprehensive introduction of some fifty-four pages to set forth the work actually accomplished by the conference. The Belgium author does not forget the rôle of Belgium, but the secretary of Mr. Van den Heuvel (the second Belgian

plenipotentiary) does not overestimate indeed the reviewer believes that he understates the value and importance of his brilliant and amiable chief.

The work of the conference is adequately summarized, from the Belgian point of view, be it said, for it is doubtful if the thirty-two nations that voted in favor of a general treaty of obligatory arbitration would subscribe to Mr. Ernst's preference for the special instead of the universal treaty, and some of them would find an inconsistency between a favorable address at the beginning and an adverse vote at the end of the conference on the subject of arbitration.

Again, there are some who might question the propriety of Mr. Ernst's criticism of the recommendation of the court of arbitral justice as a simple voeu, for the first commission adopted the project as a declaration by the substantial vote of thirty-eight for, three against, and three abstentions. It was the refusal of Belgium, Switzerland, and Roumania to permit the project to figure in the final act unless reduced to the more modest form of a voeu that degraded the court project from the high position assigned to it by the overwhelming majority of the conference.

Again, it is questionable if many people would subscribe to the author's list of personalities of the conference, which, while admitting M. Beldiman "le Délégué roumain à l'argumentation précise et serrée,” excludes Messrs. Choate and Porter, of the United States, M. Renault, of France, Dr. Kriege, of Germany, Dr. Lammasch, of Austria-Hungary, and Dr. Drago, of the Argentine Republic.

And finally there are not a few who would consider the solemn precedent of the preamble of the final act — namely, the actual proposal of the Second Conference by President Roosevelt as inconsistent with the gush of the plenary session of September 21, wherein Messrs. Beldiman, M. de Merey, Baron Marschall, et al., affected to consider the initiative of Russia as definitely acquired in the calling of future conferences.

The point of view of the little volume is progressive, but Belgian, and if the present reviewer does not share this view-point it is because he is an American, not a Belgian. Honest difference of view does not necessarily imply disrespect or a lack of appreciation.

The texts of the conference are given subject to correction by the official edition, and the volume concludes with a brief but serviceable index.

JAMES BROWN SCOTT.

Die drahtlose Telegraphie im internen Recht und Völkerrecht.

By Dr. F. Meili, Professor of Private International Law at the University of Zurich. Orell Füssli, Zurich, 1908. pp. 100.

Professor Meili is one of the few contemporary continental internationalists whose writings are familiar also to readers of English. His work on International Civil and Commercial Law has appeared in this country in English form (1905) and he is also known to us through his address on the Hague conferences on private international law delivered at the Universal Congress of Lawyers and Jurists held at St. Louis in 1904.

Dr. Meili admits a predilection for the discussion of the legal problems which modern science has presented in creating new means of transportation and intercommunication. This is all to his credit and is in line with a deeply rooted conviction, noticeable throughout all of the writings of this Swiss authority, that the science of jurisprudence should keep abreast of the progress of the world. As far back as 1871, when telegraphy was yet young, he undertook a scientific investigation of its legal problems. A monograph upon the law of the telephone issued from his pen when the telephone began to be used commercially. His work on the codification of the law relating to automobiles was reviewed in the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW for April, 1907 (p. 554).

His avowed purpose in these treatises is not to digest the substantive law already existing relating to the subjects in hand, for obviously there can be no exhaustive body of law, written or customary, in any country, applicable to legal relations arising from the operation of these modern agencies of commerce. His aim has been rather to analyze and define the juridicial nature of these new agencies and, in this light, to subject the statutory or conventional law already existing on the subject to fair criticism, as a basis for remedying defects and supplying hiatus through deliberate legislation.

This object he has well carried out in the present short treatise relating to "wireless" telegraphy, and it is with this in mind that the author discusses the questions, never before so important, of the nature and extent of sovereignty over the air abutting in a vertical plain over the open sea and over the territory of states.

The treatment of the subject is divided into two parts, the first of which deals with the significance of wireless telegraphy from the point

of view of the internal law of states; and the second, which is the more important, with its significance in the development of international law. Under the latter head he discusses the contraband nature of wireless messages in time of war, the right of neutrals to maintain wireless telegraphic communication over their territory or upon the high sea, and their duty toward belligerents to suspend or interrupt such communications in a proper case. In speaking for a classification of lines in respect of their neutral or hostile character, he is in accord with another recent writer on this branch of the subject (Scholz, Drahtlose Telegraphie und Neutralität).

The author discusses the two proposed conventions worked out at the Hague conference of 1907 (1) concerning the rights and duties of powers and persons in case of land warfare and (2) concerning the rights and duties of neutral powers in case of maritime warfare. In both of these conventions reference is expressly made to wireless telegraphy, or to use the phrase which will probably be its official designation hereafter, radiotelegraphy.

The author treats also of the international radiotelegraphic convention and the "engagement additionnel" entered into at the Berlin conference of 1906, fixing the international operation of the system in times of peace and constituting a union analogous to that already existing as to posts and telegraphs. To both of these the United States Government is a party, though ratifications have not yet been exchanged. The conventions, which are published in full in the Appendix, are to go into operation on the 1st of July next.

The closing remark of the author is sufficiently suggestive to warrant translation and quotation (p. 77):

The great works of technical discoveries exert an immense influence upon life in the modern world. This fact should constitute a special incentive to the science of jurisprudence to devote attention to modern law equal to that which it devotes to ancient law, particularly to develop the law of intercommunication as a special branch. The agencies of universal intercommunication are, in my opinion, heralds of a universal law, which, in the march of history, will undoubtedly be developed in certain special branches.

The work of Dr. Meili is a timely discussion upon a timely subject. His views are usually broad and progressive, and his analyses may well be recommended to those interested in the study or development of modern international law based upon deliberate conventional legislation. ARTHUR K. KUHN.