Article 28 declares: The provisions of the present convention do not apply except to the contracting powers, and then only if all the belligerents are parties to the convention. Articles 27 and 28 require no comment.48 A general conclusion as to the advantages of the thirteenth convention can be of slight value. That its provisions do not impose undue hardships upon a neutral is apparent. The extent of the obligation of such a state is justly declared to be determined by the means at its disposal in every situation. The most striking feature of the convention is the permission given to a belligerent war ship, first, to remain more than twenty-four hours in the waters of such neutral states as may have enacted special provisions permitting such sojourn; and secondly, to fill its bunkers built to carry fuel, in such neutral countries as may have adopted that method of determining the amount to be supplied. CHARLES CHENEY HYDE. 48 The remaining articles (29 to 33) relate solely to the details of ratification, coming into force, denunciation of, and adhesion to the convention, and to the functions to be exercised by the Netherlands Ministry for Foreign Affairs in that connection. For that reason the text is not quoted. THE LAUNCHING OF PROJECTILES FROM BALLOONS In the marked development which has recently taken place in aërial navigation, attention has not infrequently been directed to the practicability of "bombarding" fortified and unfortified places by dropping projectiles from balloons. When exposed to such an attack no place can be said to be "defended," so that the suggestion applies with equal force to fortified places, in the ordinary sense of that term, and to arsenals and fleets. To constitute an international usage, an act must have been so frequently repeated as to enable it to be subjected to classification and orderly arrangement with a view to determine whether it constitutes a lawful act of war. For a number of years past, and especially since the operations of war have been made the subject of conventional regulation, the view has been held by several states of first-class importance that what is not expressly forbidden in these undertakings may be done. From this point of view such a use of balloons as was prohibited in the declaration of 1899 would, in the absence of such a prohibition, constitute a legitimate operation of war. The launching of projectiles from balloons belongs in the same class of undertakings as the proposition to subject coast cities to ransom at the demand of a powerful fleet: that is, both have been proposed, but neither has been seriously considered by a responsible belligerent; indeed, neither practice has any existence in fact, but both have been regarded as constituting a sufficiently serious menace to humanity to warrant an international conference in formulating prohibitory declarations with a view to prevent their occurrence. There can be no doubt that the measures of prevention to which the peace conferences of 1899 and 1907 resorted were both wise and timely. The instruments with which injury may now be inflicted are, to say the least, sufficiently destructive. Belligerent states are at no loss as to the efficiency of the agencies to which they may resort in the prosecution of the destructive operations of war, and there is abounding wisdom in restricting the employment of the destructive agencies now in use to the elements upon which they are habitually employed. It will be remembered that the declaration of 1899 was agreed to by the Peace Conference at The Hague for a period of five years; it therefore expired, by its own limitation, on July 28, 1904. The terms of the new declaration are substantially the same as those of the instrument which has expired, and contain the requirement that The contracting powers agree to prohibit, for a period extending to the close of the Third Peace Conference, the discharge of projectiles and explosives from balloons or by other new methods of a similar nature. A proposition submitted by the Italian delegation requiring the officers and crews of balloons or aërial vessels to belong to the military establishment of the state which maintains them, though accepted by the committee, was not embodied in the declaration. Its inclusion was hardly necessary, as those who direct the movements of balloon and air-ships in the interests of a belligerent become, in the operation of their contracts of employment, a portion of the combatant force of the state which utilizes their services. The number of states that have not yet signed is somewhat unusual and leads us to express the hope that their signatures will be attached at an early day. GEORGE B. DAVIS. THE EQUALITY OF STATES AND THE HAGUE CONFERENCES The Second Hague Conference accomplished many valuable results and failed in much that it attempted. Many of its failures have been attributed to a faulty method of organization. The conference itself recognized this defect when on September 21, 1907, it adopted the following vou: The conference recommends to the powers the assembly of a Third Peace Conference, which might be held within a period corresponding to that which has elapsed since the preceding conference, at a date to be fixed by common agreement between the powers, and it calls their attention to the necessity of preparing the program of this Third Conference a sufficient time in advance to insure its deliberations being conducted with the necessary authority and expedition. In order to attain this object the conference considers that it would be very desirable that, some two years before the probable date of the meeting, a preparatory committee should be charged by the governments with the task of collecting the various proposals to be submitted to the conference, of ascertaining what subjects are ripe for embodiment in an international regulation, and of preparing a program which the governments should decide upon in sufficient time to enable it to be carefully examined by the countries interested. This committee should further be intrusted with the task of proposing a system of organization and procedure for the conference itself. It thus becomes a duty to examine the organization of the two Hague conferences with a view to improving conditions in a Third Conference. One of the chief causes of complaint has been the method of voting. In the Hague conferences each state had one vote, of equal weight with that of all other states. To say that this should not be the case is to attack, by implication, what has been for centuries and by most publicists is still considered to be a fundamental principle of international law. In the eyes of weaker states equal voting power for all sovereign states and equal representation on all international tribunals could not be withheld without discrediting the principle of the legal equality of states. During the Second Hague Conference two parties were formed-one strongly asserting the equality of sovereign states, and the other advocating measures which disregard the doctrine. What then is this doctrine of the equality of states in international law? One of the most recent statements of the principle is by Moore, who says: All sovereign states, without respect to their relative power, are, in the eye of international law, equal, being endowed with the same natural rights, bound by the same duties, and subject to the same obligations. (Digest of International Law, Vol. I, p. 62.) The doctrine was born with the publication of the great book of Hugo Grotius, "De Jure Belli ac Pacis," in 1625. At that time, in the midst of the Thirty Years' War, international anarchy was rampant. The idea of universal sovereignty, derived from Imperial Rome, had been handed down to the Popes. But the contest between the Empire and the Papacy had destroyed faith in either a spiritual or temporal common superior. After the Reformation the notion of a common superior ceased to exist even in theory. The idea of sovereign nations supplanted that of universal empire. Some new principle was needed to take the place of control from above. For a time it seemed as though there would be no check for the strong nation, or succor for the weak. It was here that the work of Grotius found its place. He adopted the theory, well known to his time, that a law of nature controls the relations of man to man, and applied it to the relations between states. This was Grotius' great accomplishment to find in the law of nature a new and nonreligious ground for international rights and duties. It was a common conception of the age that there had once existed a time when organized communities were not yet formed and when each individual was at liberty to do whatever he wished. Further, that men in such a condition obeyed certain rules discovered to them by their own reason. These rules were called the laws of nature. People were in a state of nature with reference to each other. Grotius used this law of nature in the following manner: No common superior being left to control the relations of states, the states were free and independent, and they were in a "state of nature" with respect to each other, |