BROWN— INTERNATIONAL ADMINISTRATION. 317 



the serious grounds for international litigation by force will be 

 effectively removed. This can be done neither by the imperious 

 will of a conqueror nor of an international sovereign executive. It 

 can only be accomplished through mutual concessions, by the free 

 will and consent of nations. 



It may be thought that in eliminating the possibility of an inter- 

 national administration through the agency of a supreme executive, 

 we have virtually excluded the possibility of any international ad- 

 ministration whatever. But this is far from being the case. On the 

 contrary, a survey of the already existing agencies for international 

 administration proves most suggestive and encouraging. 



For example, the European Danube Commission has been of 

 very great value in time of peace in the regulation of the international 

 commerce of the states bordering on the river, as well as of other 

 states represented on the Commission. 



The administration of the Suez Canal in time of peace has been 

 of an international character, though as long as England controls 

 Egypt, it would be obviously a fiction to affirm that this waterway 

 was truly internationalized. 



Tangiers may properly be denoted as an international city, ad- 

 ministered as it is by representatives of various Powers. Its situa- 

 tion, however, is quite abnormal, constituting a species of modus 

 Vivendi in the light of the conflicting ambitions of France and 

 Spain, the Powers most vitally concerned. 



A most interesting problem awaiting solution at the outbreak 

 of the great war in 1914 was the disposition of the icy island of 

 Spitzbergen, where the presence of coal deposits allured foreigners 

 of various nationalities, and required the establishment of some 

 form of municipal administration. It is understood that some such 

 anomaly was agreed upon in principle, though the precedent of the 

 codominium of Samoa by England, Germany, and the United States 

 certainly does not augur well for the success of another codominium 

 in Spitzbergen, 



We are perhaps bound in this connection to speculate somewhat 

 on the possibility of the internationalization of Constantinople and 

 the two neighboring straits. It may be conceded that an interna- 

 tional administration by officials of some such nationality as the 



