JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 83 



INTERNATIONAL LAW. 



Read before the Hantilton Association December 8th, iSgS. 

 BY W. A. LOGIE, M. A. LL. B. 



Upon being asked by your Secretary to give a paper upon 

 "International Law," I felt some diffidence about the possibility of 

 making such a paper interesting to a mixed audience. However, in 

 the following pages I have endeavored to make it as light as the 

 subject will allow ; but the decided cases and illustrations would 

 take up too much of our time, so you will pardon me if I he paper is 

 a trifle bald and the plagiarisms numerous. I assume that your 

 Secretary meant me to lecture upon public international law as 

 distinguished from private international law. 



Public international law, then, consists in certain rules of con- 

 duct which modern civiHzed states regard as binding on them in 

 their relation with one another with a force resembhng that binding 

 the moral person to obey the laws of his country, and which they 

 also regard as being enforceable by appropriate means in case of 

 infringement. International law, then, concerns itself with the 

 affairs of nations, and a sovereign state is an individual with regard 

 to it, just as we are all individuals with relation to our own laws, and 

 just as private law is for the purpose of settling quarrels between 

 individuals, so international law is for the purpose of settling quar- 

 rels between nations. A law-suit between individuals now-a-days takes 

 the place of a duel, and the object of international law is that arbitra- 

 tion shall in like manner one day take the place of war. 



The loftiest conception of international law is that laid down by 

 Dr. Whewell, namely, that its aim should be to lay down such rules 

 and suggest such measures as might tend to diminish the evils of 

 war, and finally extinguish it among nations. The latter end 

 appears indeed, at this time, impossible of attainment. Notwith- 

 standing the Czar's message of peace, the open scorn with which it 

 has been received, nay, the very preparations for war made by Rus- 

 sia herself show that the time is not yet when the war drums will beat 

 no more and the battle flag be furled. 



