488 INTERNATIONAL LAW 



And such is the language of the law courts in the Great Britain 

 of to-day, although the contrary was held by a majority of one in 

 Regina v. Keyn (1876), L. R. 2 Ex. Div. 63. To overrule this de- 

 cision and make the laws of England conform to the law of nations, 

 the declaratory Act of 41 and 42 Viet. chap. 73 was passed within two 

 years of this discredited and universally criticised judgment. The 

 important part of the Act for the purposes of this article is as fol- 

 lows: " The territorial waters of her Majesty's dominions, in refer- 

 ence to the sea, means such part of the sea adjacent to the coast of 

 the United Kingdom, or the coast of some other part of her Ma- 

 jesty's dominions, as is deemed by international law to be within 

 the territorial sovereignty of her Majesty." The preamble declares 

 that " the rightful jurisdiction of her Majesty . . . extends and 

 has always extended " over such bodies of water. 



Or to quote the language of Sir Henry Maine: " In one celebrated 

 case [Regina v. Keyn], only the other day, the English judges, 

 though by a majority of one only, founded their decision on a very 

 different principle, and a special Act of Parliament was required 

 to reestablish the authority of international law on the footing on 

 which the rest of the world had placed it." (International Law, 

 pp. 38 et seq.) 



But the matter does not rest here, for in the year of grace, 1905, an 

 English court has had occasion to consider carefully the nature and 

 relation of the law of nations to the law of England. The various 

 decisions of Lords Talbot and Mansfield in Buvot v. Barbut, Triquet 

 v. Bath, Heathfield v. Chilton, were referred to and followed as 

 correct and, therefore, binding expositions of the law. 



The far-reaching importance of the case makes it advisable to 

 state in some detail the facts as well as the opinion of the court in 

 West Rand Central Gold Mining Company v. The King (1905), 

 L. R. 2 K. B. 391. It appeared that, within the month preced- 

 ing the outbreak of the war between the South African Republic 

 and Great Britain, certain officials, acting on behalf of the Trans- 

 vaal Government, seized a quantity of gold, the product of the 

 plaintiff's mine, and it further appeared as a matter of law that 

 the Transvaal Government was liable to return the gold or its value 

 to the plaintiff. 



The counsel for plaintiff based the right to recover upon three 

 grounds: first, that by international law the sovereign of a con- 



Blackstone: "In England it has always been considered as a part of the law 

 of the land." (Commentaries on International Law, vol. i, p. 78.) 



And the late Mr. Joel P. Bishop cites this very passage as representing the 

 law in his own as well as Blackstone's day. " Governments," Mr. Bishop says, 

 " like individuals, cannot exist together without law to regulate their mutual 

 relations; hence the law of nations. It is in truth common law (4 Bl. Com.); 

 or, rather, the common law has appropriated the law of nations, making it a part 

 of itself." (1 New Crim. Law, 8th ed. (1892), sec. 483.) 



