The Daily News. SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1912. INTERNATIONAL LAW.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 173, 20 January 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1912. INTERNATIONAL LAW.

Rear-Admiral A. a. ivianan, writing in the North American Review, furnishes proof of the deficiencies of law as an instrument of international adjustment. He contends that all disputes between nations cannot be brought under a system of laws, because under any classification there cannot but remain always cases in which the right is one of morals and expediency, not susceptible of legal definition. He takes, at once, as illustration, the Monroe Doctrine. Against the acquisition by Germany from DenJmark of an island in the West Indies there is no legal ground of objection, and a tribunal could only decide that the transfer would be lawful and valid. Similarly, the objection of New Zealand to France ceding to Germany the Pacific island Tahiti would have no legal status. Nevertheless, the legal right of one country, or of two countries, may so far contravene the natural—that is, moral — right, the essential interests, the imperative policy, of a third, that resistance would be necessary and therefore justifiable. Diplomacy then enters. Arbitration is futile. Armament is simply an incident of diplomacy. The writer quotes the idea of the President of the Austrian Chamber, of "the Mediterranean for the Mediterranean Powers." In diplomacy force is there, is recognised, and is operative. If collision can be avoided, so much the better; but the f force has counted all the same. Th,e writer proceeds:—"National power is urely a legitimate factor in international settlements, for it is the outcome of national efficiency, and efficiency is entitled to assert a fair position and chance of exercise in world matters, not restricted unduly by mere legal tenures dependent for their existing legality upon a prior occupancy, which occupancy often represents an efficiency once existent but long since passed away. The colonial Empire of Spain, unimpaired a bare century ago, now wholly disappeared, is a familiar instance. The Empire of tke Turks is another. The present intervention of Italy in Tripoli is but a further step in a process of which Bosnia, Herzegovina and Bulgaria are merely the most recent examples. The supplanting of preceding dynasties in India by Great Britain, and her supervision over administration in Egypt, arc again illus-

trations. By what system of law is provision to be made for solving euch questions." The witness then quotes with eminent satisfaction Lloyd George's famous speech on the Moroccan question, and points out that the phrases "vital interests" and "national honor," carefully excluded from the recent treaties of general arbitration, appear in Mr. Lloyd George's speech in terms and in full force; and equal stress is laid on the right of the nation to play its part in the world, to assert itself as a factor in international relations, to sustain by force its position, prestige and influence among States. Such cases are more easily adjusted by the flexibility of diplomacy than by the rigidity of law. The writer also quotes Sir Edward Grey's statement that the postulate of any successful arbitration treaty of an extended kind is that there should be no conflict or possibility of conflict between the national policies: which shows that in his judgment the general arbitration treaty between Great Britain and the United States cannot safely be accepted as a type for all cases and all nations. The writer recalls that the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1900 provided that no fortifications should be erected commanding the Canal or the waters adjacent, and on ac. count of this stipulation the Senate rejected the treaty. The United States Executive ten years ago was willing to abandon a claim upon which the Executive of to-day strongly desires to act, and is acting, with the support of Congress. The Senate of 1000 saved the situation for 1911. So, the Admiral concludes, history amply shows the insufficiency of law as an instrument in composing differences. The early Stuart kings with great care based their oppressive actions upon law still existing unrepealed. International law, similarly, has to treat as legal a claim which may have issued in intolerable conditions. The judge decides what the law is, not what it should be. The Admiral draws a still nearer parallel. He quotes from Dr. Rawson Gardiner as follows:—"Sup' pose that the House of Lords rejected every Bill sent up to it by the Commons. What would be the use of applying to the judges as arbitrators? They could but decide that the Lords were legally right. They could not decide whether they were politically right."' The Admiral adds: "The imagined case has occurred, not in all particulars, but in substance. The inadequacy of the law has been recognised; and the British Government of the day has obtained by political action, of the nature of threatened violence, that to which law, as an instrument, proved inadequate. A political instrument was employed when the legal instrument—recourse to a courtcould not but fail. In the case of the Stuarts the political instrument used was armed resistance."