ture, special contracts, and on account of claims for injuries to their subjects during the disorders of revolutions. Germany proposed arbitration. Venezuela refused. Great Britain also proposed arbitration, but her offer was rejected. Italy wanted her claims adjusted, but was willing to accept the decision of a mixed commission. The offer was ignored. But it should be said that Venezuela insisted that her own laws were conclusive as to the matters in dispute.

Notice was given to the United States by Germany that it was her intention to blockade Venezuelan ports to enforce her claims, but it was expressly stated that there was no intention of taking territory. The United States Government made no objection at the course of action determined upon, but refused to acquiesce when Germany, joined by Great Britain and Italy, established an anomalous pacific blockade. The form of the blockade was then changed from pacific to hostile, applied to all nations in the usual way, and was duly recognized by their attitude of neutrality. Within a day or two after the blockade began, Venezuela herself offered to arbitrate, but her belated courtesy was ignored. At this point, the government of Venezuela, assisted by the advice of her plenipotentiary, Herbert W. Bowen, agreed to assign, in payment of her debts to Germany, Great Britain and Italy, duties to the extent of thirty per cent from the customs receipts of La Guaira and Puerto Cabello, and made some payments to those powers.

Other powers who had claims against Venezuela made peaceful demands for their share of payments. The question then arose whether the blockading powers should be given preference. The powers offered to refer the question to President Roosevelt, but he again proposed resort to the Hague Court. The case went to it and was decided in favor of the blockading powers, but the matter of the actual value of the respective claims of all the creditor powers was, by agreement, submitted to mixed commissions, consisting of one national each, of Venezuela and the claimant nation, with a neutral as umpire, which met at Caracas and subsequently reported their awards.

Some question arose later as to the ethics of the decision. The statement was made that it put a premium on war-like methods instead of peaceful recourse to the law, but the critics of the court perhaps forgot that, in the present state of international law, a hostile blockade is a legitimate operation just as war itself is still legitimate, to which no protest was made by any of the interested peaceful powers before it was instituted, though notice of it had been given in advance. The judges in their decision took pains to point out this lack of protest by the non-blockading powers.

Professor Moore, at Lake Mohonk, in commenting upon this decision (Report, 1904, p. 64), says:

In judicially deciding, therefore, that the blockading powers had by their forcible action acquired preferential position, which, but for their agreeing to submit the question to arbitration, they would have gone on to make effective, the Hague Tribunal merely declared and applied, as it was in duty bound to do, the existing international law. The Hague Tribunal is a judicial, not a legislative, body.

The moral aspect of this case was perhaps even more important than the legal. The fact was that three heavily armed powers had raised their hands and were about to strike a blow, when an agreement was reached by which it was possible to avoid serious hostilities by submitting the issue involved to the Hague Court. Not only that, but eleven nations, thirteen including Russia and Austria, who furnished the judges, representing about four hundred and fifty million people, committed themselves at one time to the use of the court for a peaceful settlement instead of war.

A few years ago, it would have been thought a crazy notion of the peace advocates had anybody suggested that a dispute between France and Germany, on a sensitive point of honor, could be referred to a court of arbitration, but a tribunal at the Hague settled to satisfaction a remarkable case of this kind in 1909. It is known as the Casablanca Incident.

Six soldiers from the French foreign legion in Morocco deserted, and secured by improper means a safe conduct home from the German consul. They were forcibly taken from his protection by French soldiers who arrested them September

25, 1908, having threatened and fired upon the native Moroccan guard who had the men in charge.

Diplomatic representatives of the two governments failing to come to a satisfactory understanding, the dispute was referred to the Hague Court. The tribunal partook somewhat of the character of an international commission of inquiry. It was empowered to decide questions of law and fact, and authorized to go, or send a delegate, to the scene of the incident in order to secure facts if necessary.

The decision of the tribunal implicated both sides in technical errors, but it was couched in language that could offend the honor of neither nation. The substance of it was that the German consul should not have given safe conduct to the deserters, but that the French military authorities should have endeavored, as far as possible, to obtain possession of the deserters without the use of force, the excessive display of which, on this occasion was criticised. The deserters, however, were left in possession of the French, the tribunal not passing judgment upon this point, and each government, according to previous agreement, apologized to the other for its mistakes.

These cases show a growing tendency of the governments to refer to the court a variety of difficulties. Some of these had already led to bad feeling and might, without adjustment, have become dangerous irritants between the peoples, represented by the governments, and formed a part of an accumulation of grievances liable to be recalled in a moment of national passion, over some new and unexpected incident. Failure to pay debts, as already seen in the first case of Venezuela, has led to the use of the military arm, but this is not all. The use of the court is not only for the prevention of war, but for the upholding of justice, without which a scheme for the prevention of war might, on some grounds, become open to criticism. The fact that the court secures justice where otherwise justice might be delayed or never realized, with war or without war; this aspect of the Hague peace system, peace with justice, is a virtue that cannot fail to commend it even to believers in war for virtue's sake. This point is more par

ticularly illustrated by the Fisheries Case, which, from its historic nature, deserves more extended consideration.

The settlement by the Hague Court of the North Atlantic fisheries question closed a controversy that had perplexed British and American statesmen, at different times, for seventy years.

By the treaty of peace, 1783, practically all the British coasts of North America were left open to American fishermen to dry fish on, except those of Newfoundland, but Americans were allowed to take fish in all British coastal waters, as had been the custom in colonial days. When, however, at the close of the war of 1812, terms of peace were made at Ghent, the British Government asserted, and the United States commissioners denied, that the war had abrogated the fisheries article of the former treaty, and no mention of the fisheries was made in that treaty. The action of British war vessels led to vehement protests and threats of war. Diplomatic correspondence followed, at the end of which both parties came to an agreement by the treaty of London, 1818, the first article of which relates to the fisheries. By this treaty, it was agreed that the United States should have perpetual liberty to take fish on certain coasts of Newfoundland and the Magdalen Islands, and on certain coasts of Labrador, in common with British subjects. The treaty also gave the American fishermen the liberty to dry and cure fish on certain unsettled shores within limits described on the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts, subject to agreement with inhabitants and proprietors whenever, in the future, those shores should be settled. The United States renounced their libetry before enjoyed, or claimed, to take or dry or cure fish within three marine miles of any other of the coasts, bays, creeks or harbors of His Majesty's Dominions in America, but it was agreed that American fishermen might enter such waters "for the purpose of shelter and repairing damage therein, of purchasing wood, and of obtaining water, and for no other purpose whatever." And it was provided that regulations be made to prevent the abuse of such privileges granted on these, sometimes called the non-treaty, coasts.

If there was a marked difference between the fisheries provisions of the treaty of 1783 and those of 1818, it was due, in part, to the fact that conditions had changed in the interval, owing to the settlement and growth of the British colonies affected by the treaties, and the value to those colonies of the local fisheries, of which they had begun to make use. The treaty of 1818 was well calculated to recognize these changes, but, as Mr. Robert Lansing who has written a very able account of the fisheries case, observes, it did not consider future growth. Indeed, had it done so there might never have been a fisheries arbitration. Conditions continued to change, especially in Newfoundland, which in early days was practically a closed country to settlers, but which in late years has been opened up to settlement. Inhabitants of Newfoundland and the Maritime Provinces began to look upon their enterprising New England rivals with jealous eyes, and, in the case of Newfoundland, with good reason, because the fisheries were its sole dependence, and, in any event, deserved proper protection.

Considerable irritation arose which finally led, on the part of Canada, but more particularly Newfoundland, to the making . of rigorous local laws, by which Americans were seriously restricted as to days, seasons, and the manner of taking fish. They were penalized for shipping Newfoundland fishermen, and were made to enter and clear at customs houses, although these houses were at a long distance from the scene of fishing, and although the fishermen were not engaged in trading. American fishermen were also compelled to pay light and harbor dues. Similar requirements were made of American fishing vessels resorting to non-treaty coasts for the legitimate purpose of making repairs, seeking shelter, and obtaining wood and

water.

Although the irritation of the early days was allayed by the reciprocity treaties of 1854 and 1871, and, although since the failure of the Bayard-Chamberlain treaty of 1888 from nonratification by the Senate, peaceful and, to a certain extent, satisfactory relations had been maintained by a system of licenses granted by both Canada and Newfoundland, an oppres