CHAPTER VIII 



The Plebiscite in International and Constitutional 



Law 



The transfer of territory from one state to another is a 

 matter of interstate, or international, relations. Such rela- 

 tions are subject to, and are regulated by, that body of 

 rules by which the civilized nations have in common agreed 

 to govern their mutual intercourse. The plebiscite in the 

 transfer of territory must, therefore, be considered in its 

 relations to these rules. 



While the plebiscite has been considered in its interna- 

 tional aspects by a long list of commentators, of advocates 

 and opponents,^ the institution has, nevertheless, found 

 little space in our standard text books on international law. 

 The prevailing opinion expressed before the World War 

 was to the effect that the rules governing the intercourse 

 of states do neither demand nor recognize the universal 

 application of the plebiscite in the determination of sov- 

 ereignty. W. E. Hall, for instance, speaks of the idea 

 that the exercise of the right of alienation is "subject to 

 the tacit or express consent of the population inhabiting the 

 territory intended to be alienated," as a misapprehension. 

 Thus he writes : 



The doctrine appears in two forms, a moderate and an extreme 

 one. In its more moderate shape it appears to come to little more 

 than a denial that title by cession is complete when the ceded terri- 

 tory has been handed over by the original owner to the new pro- 

 prietor, peaceable submission by the inhabitants being necessary to 

 perfect the right of the latter; but it is occasionally declared that 

 the cession of land cannot be dissociated from that of the people 

 who live and enjoy their political rights upon it. that "a people is no 

 longer a thing without rights and without will." that" its consent, if 



1 A fairly complete list of the advocates and the opponents of the 

 plebiscite is given by Freudcnthal, pp. 54-56. The list has been 

 brought up to date by Wambaugh, pp. -Ji-jo. 



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