30 EMPLOYMENT OF THE PLEBISCITE [,32S 



has, under the influence of the principles proclaimed in the 

 French Revolution, been modified to the eflfect that today 

 the nation is recognized as an essential part of the state and 

 that the nation is the carrier of sovereignty." 



Voluntary cessions are those transfers of territory' which 

 are effected without the use of force by one of the con- 

 tracting states. More frequently, however, territorial trans- 

 fers are the price of a peace forced by one state upon the 

 other and are preceded by war and the ensuing conquest 

 and military occupation of the territory ceded, as was the 

 case of the cession of Lombardy by Austria to France in 

 1859, of Alsace-Lorraine by France to Germany in 1871, 

 of Cuba, Porto Rico, the Philippines, the Island of Guam 

 by Spain to the United States in 1898.^^ 



Territorial changes by leases are usually stipulated to be 

 for a certain number (99) of years, but for all practical 

 purposes they are considered as final. China leased Kiao- 

 chau to Germany, Port Arthur to Russia and Wei-Hai-Wei 

 to Great Britain.^^ 



Transfers by pledge are those which are to take effect at 

 a later, a fixed date or after certain conditions have been 

 or have not been fulfillled. The Republic of Genoa pledged 

 Corsica to France in 1768, Sweden pledged Wismar to 

 Mecklenburg in 1803." 



Technically speaking, all these forms are territorial 

 changes known in international law as cessions. With the 

 exception of the transfer by lease all involve the immediate 

 or eventual change of allegiance of the inhabitants of the 

 territories thus ceded or transferred and to all therefore 



^1 Bonfils, no. 567. It is on the strength of this view that most of 

 the French publicists favor the plebiscite in the transfer of terri- 

 tory. But among the opponents of the principle of popular self- 

 determination as the means of territorial settlements, chiefly Ger- 

 man, English and American writers, we find also French dissenting 

 opinion. Rivier, for instances, states that: "The theory of the 

 plebiscite is attached to the ill-comprehended dogma of popular 

 sovereignty and to the principle of nationalism; it is for this reason 

 it could play a role in France and Italy" (p. 211 ; Bonfils, no. 57o). 



1= Bonfils, nos. 564-569, 571^; Oppcnheim, vol. i, pp. 270-271. 



^"Bonfils, no. 571^; Oppcnheim, vol. i, p. 271. 



1* Oppcnheim, vol. i, p. 271, 



