States, and it can not be doubted that the knowledge obtained at first hand, based as it is upon an understanding of the local conditions of the various states of Latin-America, will result in a greater sympathy with the aims and the purposes of all parties concerned. Heretofore we have discussed grave questions at arm's length; we have seen through the glass darkly. In order to meet the needs of Latin-America, and in order to conduct our business relations in such a way as to prevent litigation and misunderstanding, it is necessary to know in advance the local laws and regulations governing business transactions. Mr. Walton was therefore well advised and is to be congratulated upon the publication of the five volumes dealing with the commercial and maritime law of Latin-America. It will be henceforth a simple matter to ascertain the text of the law regulating the particular transaction by consulting the laws of Latin-America which Mr. Walton has industriously collected and annotated.

It is common knowledge that the laws of the United States can not be understood without constant reference to the common law of England and the various statutes correcting and modifying it, for in adopting the common law we naturally adopted it as modified by statute and as interpreted by the competent courts of Great Britain. In like manner the laws of Spain, either directly or indirectly, form the basis of LatinAmerican jurisprudence and the various codes of Latin-America are based upon the codes of Spain. Brazil and Haiti do not in reality form an exception, although Brazil is of Portuguese origin and Haiti has based its jurisprudence upon the civil code of France. The method. adopted by Mr. Walton has been to print and annotate a particular portion of the Spanish code and to follow this by the codes of the various Latin-American states, alphabetically arranged. References are made to the code of Spain and much space is thus saved. The changes introduced in the codes of Latin-America are noted and in proper cases annotated, and the absence of corresponding provisions is likewise pointed out. The law of the United States is likewise given in alphabetical order. Statutes are quoted, decisions of courts are noted, and references made to the literature on the subject.

No attempt is made to analyze in detail this elaborate work; it is sufficient to call attention to its scope and to assure the reader that it is carefully compiled from the various official publications of the LatinAmerican countries. The entire text is in Spanish and the SpanishAmerican or Latin-American is put in possession, within the moderately

short compass of five volumes, of the commercial and maritime law of the various Latin-American countries, and the American lawyer, with these volumes on his shelves, may consult without difficulty indeed, with ease the provisions of the law, which he must know in advance in order to be a safe counselor. The summary of the laws of the United States, likewise in Spanish, will be of service to the Latin-American who may wish in advance information concerning our system of jurisprudence. JAMES BROWN SCOTT.

Frontiers. By The Right Honourable Lord Curzon of Kedleston, D. C. L., LL. D., F. R. S. The Roumanes Lecture, 1907. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. 1907.

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Attention is called to the admirable address on Frontiers" delivered by Lord Curzon in the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford on November 2, 1907. The learned Chancellor called attention to the fact that he had never been able to discover any literature dealing with frontiers, although frontiers "are the chief anxiety of nearly every foreign office in the civilized world, and are the subject of four out of every five political treaties or conventions that are now concluded; though as a branch of the science of government frontier policy is of the first practical. importance, and has a more profound effect upon the peace or warfare of nations than any other factor, political or economical, there is yet no work or treatise in any language which, so far as I know, affects to treat of the subject as a whole."

After a brief introduction, Lord Curzon proceeds to consider what frontiers mean and what part they play in the life of nations, and in so doing devotes a few pages (5 to 11, inclusive) to the history of the subject. He then passes to the origin of frontiers and divides them into natural and artificial, stating that "the sea is the most uncompromising, the least alterable, and the most effective." As second in the list of natural frontiers he places deserts, "until modern times a barrier even more impassable than the sea."

He then considers a third type of natural frontiers, namely, mountains. While he admits that rivers are natural frontiers, he states that they are really not natural divisions "because people of the same race are apt to reside on both banks."

In discussing artificial frontiers he passes in review the commonest type of the barrier frontier, consisting of a palisade or mound or rampart

or wall, showing that in ancient times the palisade or rampart or wall were the commonest illustration of the type; that in ancient times a common and widely diffused type was that of the intermediary or neutral zone, whereas in mediæval times marks or marches formed a common expedient. The learned author considers the nature of buffer states and the creation of neutralized communities. He then passes to an enumeration of the artificial frontiers in use at the present day among modern states, and finds them to be three in number:

(1) What may be described as the pure astronomical frontier, following a parallel of latitude or a meridian of longitude; (2) a mathematical line connecting two points, the astronomical coordinates of which are specified; and (3) a frontier defined by reference to some existing and, as a rule, artificial feature or condition. Their common characteristic is that they are, as a rule, adopted for purposes of political convenience, that they are indifferent to physical or ethnological features, and that they are applied in new countries where the rights of communities or tribes have not been stereotyped, and where it is possible to deal in a rough and ready manner with unexplored and often uninhabited tracks. They are rarely found in Europe, or even in Asia, where either long settlement or conflict has, as a rule, resulted in boundaries of another type.

The concluding part of this admirable little treatise is devoted to a consideration of the modern expedients of protectorates, spheres of influence and of interest. Of this latter category as a whole he says:

Of all the diplomatic forms or fictions which have latterly been described, it may be observed that the uniform tendency is for the weaker to crystallize into the harder shape. Spheres of interest tend to become spheres of influence; temporary leases to become perpetual; spheres of influence to develop into protectorates; protectorates to be the forerunners of complete incorporation. The process is not so immoral as it might at first sight appear; it is in reality an endeavor, sanctioned by general usage, to introduce formality and decorum into proceedings which, unless thus regulated and diffused, might endanger the peace of nations or too violently shock the conscience of the world.

The little treatise (it is only fifty-eight pages in extent) is an admirable example of the treatment of a great subject within a remarkably brief compass.

JAMES BROWN SCOTT.

Journal de droit international privé, 35:5.

Private Property at Sea. Sir E. Gray on Capture at Sea. Sir John Macdonell. Contemporary Review, 93:359.

Russo-Japanese War. An unpublished page of international diplomacy. André Mévil. National Review, March, 1908.

South Africa. Les Allemands dans l'Afrique du Sud, pt. 1. Ernest Tomelat. Revue de Paris, February 15, 1908.

Treaty-Making Power of the Government of the United States in its International Aspect. Everett P. Wheeler. Yale Law Journal, 17:151.