THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF NEUTRALIZED 

 TERRITORY. 



By CHARLEMAGNE TOWER. 



{Read April 23, 1915.) 



Although the growing importance of the United States and their 

 extended influence as a world power have made the subject one of 

 prime interest to them in many respects heretofore, there has prob- 

 ably never been a time when the principle of neutrality has had for 

 us in America the same weighty consideration that it has under the 

 existing circumstances in the world today. 



Never, probably, have the rights and duties of neutrals been so 

 carefully scrutinized by American public opinion, or so sensitively 

 tested by the responsible authorities of our Government. And very 

 justly so, because, with almost the whole of Europe inflamed before 

 us in this great war, there is scarcely a day in which some serious 

 question does not present itself in the maintenance of our public 

 policy, some delicate situation which afl'ects our national honor, — 

 both in our character of neutrals and our relations with the bel- 

 ligerent powers, and in their dealings with us in return. 



It may be of interest, therefore, to consider one or two of the 

 underlying principles of the rights and duties of neutral nations ; 

 not the less so, perhaps, because of the fact that neutrality, in its 

 present recognized form, is the most recent and most modern of the 

 effective rules of international law. 



Indeed, the nations of antiquity had not only no conception of 

 what we call neutrality, but they had not even a name by which to 

 convey our meaning of the term. The Romans alluded to those not 

 engaged in the war as medii, amici or pacati; and their dealings 

 with them were regulated, as far as we can judge, by the feeling 

 that they were peaceful and friendly ; at all events that they were 

 not openly to be regarded as the enemy. And this appears to have 

 been the view of their position throughout the Middle Ages. It 



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