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 An unpublished page of international diplomacy.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.

THE SANCTION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW1

One accustomed to the administration of municipal law who turns his attention for the first time to the discussion of practical questions arising between nations and dependent upon the rules of international law, must be struck by a difference between the two systems which materially affects the intellectual processes involved in every discussion, and which is apparently fundamental.

The proofs and arguments adduced by the municipal lawyer are addressed to the object of setting in motion certain legal machinery which will result in a judicial judgment to be enforced by the entire power of the state over litigants subject to its jurisdiction and control. Before him lies a clear, certain, definite conclusion of the controversy, and for the finality and effectiveness of that conclusion the sheriff and the policeman stand always as guarantors in the last

resort.

When the international lawyer, on the other hand, passes from that academic discussion in which he has no one to convince but himself, and proceeds to seek the establishment of rights or the redress of wrongs in a concrete case, he has apparently no objective point to which he can address his proofs or arguments, except the conscience and sense of justice of the opposing party to the controversy. In only rare, exceptional and peculiar cases, do the conclusions of the international lawyer, however, clearly demonstrated, have behind them the compulsory effect of possible war. In the vast majority of practical questions arising under the rules of international law there does not appear on the surface to be any reason why either party should abandon its own contention or yield against its own interest to the arguments of the other side. The action of each party in yielding or refusing to yield to the arguments of the other appears to be entirely dependent upon its own will and pleasure. This apparent absence of sanction for the enforcement of the rules of international law has led great authority to deny that those rules are entitled to be called law at all; and this apparent hopelessness of finality carries to

1 Address delivered at the second annual meeting of the American Society of International Law, April 24, 1908.

State's prison for a violation of law. The reformatory meant comparative ease, comfort, and opportunity for speedy return to entire freedom; the State's prison would have meant hard labor and long and severe confinement. Yet in his community of habitual criminals a term in State's prison was a proof of manhood and a title to distinction, while consignment to a reformatory was the treatment suited to immature boyhood. He preferred the punishment of manhood with what he deemed honor to the opportunity of youth with what he deemed disgrace. Not only is the effectiveness of the punishments denounced by law against crime derived chiefly from the public opinion which accompanies them, but those punishments themselves are but one form of the expression of public opinion. Laws are capable of enforcement only so far as they are in agreement with the opinions of the community in which they are to be enforced. As opinion changes old laws become obsolete and new standards force their way into the statute books. Laws passed, as they sometimes are, in advance of public opinion ordinarily wait for their enforcement until the progress of opinion has reached recognition of their value. The force of law is in the public opinion which prescribes it. The impulse of conformity to the standard of the community and the dread of its condemnation are reinforced by the practical considerations which determine success or failure in life. Conformity to the standard of business integrity which obtains in the community is necessary to business success. It is this consideration far more frequently than the thought of the sheriff with a writ of execution that leads men to pay their debts and to keep their contracts. Social esteem and standing, power and high place in the professions, in public office, in all associated enterprise, depend upon conformity to the standards of conduct in the community. Loss of these is the most terrible penalty society can inflict. It is only for the occasional nonconformist that the sheriff and policeman are kept in reserve; and it is only because the nonconformists are occasional and comparatively few in number that the sheriff and the policeman can have effect

at all. For the great mass of mankind laws established by civil society are enforced directly by the power of public opinion, having, as the sanction for its judgments, the denial of nearly everything for which men strive in life.