ARGUMENT OF SIR WILLIAM ROBSON. 1693 



been taken to have been acting upon it, because that is his sug- 

 gestion. Mr. Clauss himself says that there is very little unanimity 

 upon the subject, and that the subject has not received thorough 

 consideration for about a century. That does seem an odd state- 

 ment, because the subject has only existed in international law for 

 about a century, and if it has not received thorough consideration 

 during that time it has not received any consideration at all, as I 

 shall sKow. It had not emerged from its German home it had not 

 come out from its German birthplace until the end of the eighteenth 

 century, if even then. Certainly diplomatists have not done much 

 to develop the concept; they never used the word. They kept clear 

 of it most carefully. Even in recent times, when Colombia has some 

 reason to fear that there is a servitude in the air, it takes care to 

 have it known that it is not going to have any such doctrine of 

 servitude applied in its case. Diplomatists avoid the word because 

 it is a word which'connotes and imports disagreeable and humiliating 

 associations to the State. I think it has been mentioned in the course 

 of these proceedings that Bismarck, when some question was raised 

 with regard to razing fortifications upon the German boundary, ob- 

 jected to treating that as anything like an adequate protection to 

 Germany. He said : " It constitutes a servitude, and I prefer annexa- 

 tion, about which there can be no doubt, because the application of 

 that character of servitude was a thing which created continual fric- 

 tion and doubt as to the relations of the two parties." In fact, the 



word " servitude," as I ventured to say at an earlier stage, was 

 1024 bad nomenclature. Whatever meaning you may give the word, 



whatever significance you may attach to the thing, it is the 

 most unfortunate thing, I think, that ever found its way into inter- 

 national law at all. As to private law, I do not think there is any 

 harm in it. There is no humiliation to the owner of a property if 

 his land is burdened for the benefit of adjacent land. After all, if 

 there is any doubt about enforcing the rights attaching to such a 

 servitude there is the common law of their common country to decide 

 between them. A servitude attaching to a man's land in no way 

 humiliates him. It does not affect his personal status, and if there is 

 a doubt about it there is the judge, who will settle it. He is sovereign 

 over both the dominant and servient property. But if you transfer 

 this inappropriate conception to international law, at once it begins 

 to work mischief and confusion, because the States that are said, 

 one to be servient and the other to be dominant, have no judge above 

 them to settle their rights. The servitude attaches not to their terri- 

 tory. It is said to attach to their territory, but it attaches also to their 

 Government, according to the view contended for now, and becomes 

 instantly important, affecting the territorial status that is to say, 

 the status of the State. It affects the national pride it touches the 



