586 



The Review of Reviews. 



WHERE INTERNATIONAL LAW BREAKS DOWN. 



Bv Admiral Mahan. 

 Reak-.\dmiuai, a. T. Mahan continues in the 

 A'orth Amerkiin Review his 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 ex- 

 pediency, not susceptible of legal definition. 



FOR EXAMPLE, THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 



He takes, at once, as illustration, the Monroe 

 Doctrine. Against the acquisition by Germany from 

 Denmark of an island in the West Indies there could 

 be 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, the 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 I'resident of the 

 Austrian Chamber, of " the Mediterranean for the 

 Mediterranean Powers." 



NATIONAL FORCE A PROOF OF EFFICIENCY. 



In diplomacy force is there, is recognised, and is 

 operative. If collision can be avoided, so much the- 

 better ; but the force has counted all the same. The 

 writer proceeds : — 



National power is surely a legitimate factor in international 

 settlements, for it is the outcome of national efficiency, and 

 efliciency is entitled to assert its fair position and chance of 

 exercise in world matters, not restricted unduly by mere legal 

 tenures dependent for their existing legaliiy upon a prior occu- 

 pancy, 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 the Turks is another. 

 The present intervention of Italy in Tripoli is but a further step 

 in a process of which Bosnia, Herzegovina, Bulgaria are merely 

 the most recent examples. The supplanting of preceding 

 dynasties in India by Great Britain, and her supervision over 

 administration in Egypt, are again illustrations. By what 

 system of law is provision to be made for solving such 

 questions ? 



WITNESS MR. LLOYD (iEOUGE. 



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 honour,'' carefully excluded 

 from the recent treatiess 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 amoni; 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 FORTIFICATION OF THE PANAMA CANAL. 



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 account of this stiptilation 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 

 1900 saved the situation for 191 1. So, the Admiral 

 concludes, history amply shows the insufficiency of 

 law as an instrument in composing difterences. 



PARALLELS WITHIN THE NATION. 



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 con- 

 ditions. 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 : — 



.Suppose 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 in the right. They could not decide 

 whether they were politically in the right. 



The Admiral adds ; — 



The imagined case has occurred, not in all pailiculars, 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 violenae, that to which law, 

 as an instrument, proved inadequate. A political instrument 

 was employed when the legal instrument — recourse to a court — 

 could not but fail. In the case of the Stuarts the political in- 

 strument used w.as armed resistance. 



The good Admiral proves too much. If the inade- 

 quacy of law between the nations demands armaments 

 to make diplomacy effective, then the inadequacy of 

 law within the nation should lead to prei)arations for 

 civil war ! But if the inade(iuacy of law within the 

 nation is met, not by disputants arming for civil strife, 

 hut by new laws, will not the inadequacy of interna- 

 tional law be met in the same way ? 



A LONG article, by \V. H. de Beaufort, on Norman 

 Angell's book, " The Great Illusion," appears in the 

 Deutsche Revue for November. The book is also 

 referred to in another article in the same Review on 

 the Influence of the Peace Movement on Eurojiean 

 Armaments. The writer, \' ice- Admiral Glatzel, notes 

 that in the Peace Movement there are some three 

 thousand Peace Societies. 



