The Grotius Society. Volume III. Problems of the War. Papers read before the Society in the year 1917. London: Sweet & Maxwell, Limited. 1918, pp. 139.

Brief, pointed, impartial and informing, several of the papers in this collection would serve as articles for an encyclopædia of international law. Very little discussion that followed the reading of the papers is printed, but whatever appears has the compactness of textbook style which contrasts favorably with that of the diffuse stenographic reports that usually record the debates of an American convention. With one or two exceptions, the papers are confined to technical questions that have been raised by the war, and all of them are of a practical nature. Sober in treatment, and neither speculative nor sentimental in substance, they include neither projects for a United States of the World nor a scheme for the enforcement of the decrees of an international court; but in 1917 the topic of a league of nations was growing in the British mind. "Treaties of Peace," by Commander Sir Graham Bower, deals with treaties that brought to a close the War of the Spanish Succession, the Napoleonic War and the Congress of Vienna, the Anglo-American War of 1812, and the Crimean War. Viewing them from the standpoint of effecting permanent peace, and not merely of temporarily ending a conflict, Commander Bower dwells upon the good example of the Treaty of Ghent. Although he refrains from making proposals as to the present treaty of peace, he makes a summary of the lessons that he has drawn, which might be taken as suggestions by the peace commissioners of the associated Powers. "Belligerent Merchantmen in Neutral Ports," by Sanford Cole, who cites the controversy between Germany and Portugal, takes the ground that a neutral is not obliged to give unconditional hospitality to belligerent ships in time of war, either by admitting them to its ports or by refraining from requisitioning them if they are already in port. "The Black List," by J. E. G. de Montmorency, derives that list, which some people have thought a British invention, from prize court cases decided in American courts during the Civil War. In "The Deutschland" Judge Atherley-Jones holds that the submarine of that name, not from its warlike build only, but also as the announced organ of the German state, should be given both by neutrals and belligerents the status of a warship. "International Law Teaching," by E. A. Whittuck, one of the most interesting papers in this collection, shows that in the

British Empire generally, international law, which is not required as a qualification for the foreign office, the diplomatic or the consular services, and is lightly regarded by the Council of Legal Education that represents the Inns of Court, is taught in a few educational centers like Oxford, Cambridge and London by a few great men to a few students to whom it is usually an optional subject for a university degree. Salaries of instructors in international law are generally small, and in some instances their status in the academic world is lower than it should be. The Admiralty is the only government department that has provided direct instruction in international law, employing authorities like Dr. Lawrence and A. Pearce Higgins; but it is hoped that it will become a more popular study in the future and be better known than it is to British statesmen, who, as a rule, have to depend upon the advice of specialists, only a limited number of whom may now be called upon for assistance. Mr. Whittuck pays tribute to the efforts of the American Society of International Law to put the teaching of this subject on a scientific basis. "The Control of Air Spaces," by J. E. G. de Montmorency, takes the ground that the sea-law of effective occupation, as laid down by the British writer Hall, applies to the air and that, therefore, the law of the air gives to a nation that in time of war can effectively occupy or strategically control by exclusion the high air spaces in super ocean areas or above such seas and straits as the Black Sea, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, the right of temporary ownership in them, subject to regulated rights of innocent passage. "Legal War Work in Egypt," by Sir Malcolm McIlwraith, describes the simplification and unification by the military authorities, during the present war, of the complex laws of Egypt and shows that discriminating privileges and obstructions to justice which existed under the Capitulations have been eliminated and may be permanently abolished later by civil legislation. Emphasizing the necessity of common markets, L. P. Rastorgouèff, in "The Revolution and the Unity of Russia," offers a solution of problems of nationality in that country through a federation rather than a separation of its states. "The Relations of the Prize Court to Belligerent Policy," by Sir Francis Piggott, raises the question whether it is expedient for prize courts to be given the power to declare invalid Orders in Council which carry out the policy of the government. A discussion, showing some misunderstanding of the writer's meaning, but on the whole affirming the

validity of international law and its superiority to government policy, follows. H. S. Q. Henriques and Dr. Ernest J. Schuster differ radically in discussing the relative merits and the basic ideas of the two systems of citizenship that are elucidated in their studies entitled "The Jus Soli or the Jus Sanguinis?" "Reciprocity in the Enjoyment of Civil Rights," by Wyndham A. Bewes, closes this valuable series of papers with a recommendation of generosity toward foreigners, whether as individual litigants seeking to enforce judgments in court or as persons needing judicial assistance, the benefits of workmen's compensation acts, the copyright or the bankruptcy laws.

JAMES L. TRYON.

The West Florida Controversy, 1798-1813: A Study in American Diplomacy. By Isaac Joslin Cox. (Albert Shaw Lectures in Diplomatic History, 1912.) Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press. 1918, pp. xii, 699. 4 maps. $3.00.

This is a thorough, scholarly, and exhaustive study of the subject by one of the recognized authorities in the history of the Mississippi Valley and the Spanish Southwest. He has made use of practically all writings of value by earlier investigators in the field, and in addition has drawn upon manuscript collections in both state and national archives of the United States and in the foreign countries which might reasonably be expected to contain pertinent material, notably Mexico, Spain, France, and England. Any future investigator who goes gleaning in the same field will discover that very little has been allowed to escape the sickle or fall from the hands of this indefatigable reaper.

Geographically, the area covered by the book is small; but in order fully to set forth the controversy it was necessary to study the activities in this region of three nations besides the United States, namely, Spain, France, and England. Chronologically, the study confessedly begins with 1798; yet in the opening chapters it necessarily goes into much earlier events in order to explain the origins. of claims then existing.

After disposing of these origins, the author studies the activities of pioneers and filibustering parties from the United States; follows the long, devious, futile negotiations of United States diplomatic representatives at the French and Spanish courts; describes the establishment of the insurgent government at Baton Rouge; reviews the steps.

leading to and putting into effect the intervention of the United States, and describes the incorporation of the territory into the Union and the adjustment of its government.

A chapter on "Mobile and the Aftermath" studies the relations between the West Florida controversy and the second war with Great Britain; and the final chapter, the seventeenth, on the "Conclusion of the Controversy," traces rapidly the negotiations with Spain from 1813, which, according to the title of the book, is its chronological end, to their logical conclusion in the treaty with Spain of 1819-21, which finally ceded to the United States all of Spain's claims not only to West Florida, but also to East Florida and the region west of the Mississippi lying east and north of the line of 1819, drawn from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.

Dr. Cox explains, but makes no attempt to justify, the acquisition of the Floridas. After saying that "intrigue, craftiness, and mendacity were the accepted weapons" of the European diplomats with whom Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and J. Q. Adams had to contend in this controversy, he adds: "Their American competitors claimed to be men of another stripe. Yet even when diplomacy descended to the plane of sordid bribery, the executive and his counsellors were willing to profit by it."

The fearless author points to the century of Latin-American justifiable distrust and suspicion as part of the price paid by the United States for this territory thus acquired with scant claim and by questionable means, and says: "There is little cause for wonder, therefore, that the story of how West Florida was acquired has remained a perpetual tangle, inexplicable, discreditable, and generally ignored."

Either imbued with the instinct of a dramatist, or actuated by a belief that the really worth-while reader would pursue his story to the last of its nearly seven hundred pages, Professor Cox reserved for his concluding paragraph what one usually expects to find in the preface, that part of a book which someone has aptly defined as the last thing which the writer writes and the first thing which the reader reads. It follows:

As a phase of frontier expansion its acquisition can be more readily understood. The various steps which led up to it were not wholly praiseworthy, but they were the natural phases of a popular movement into the wilderness. The pioneers who took part in it had pressed into an area that physiographically belonged to the United States and they undertook to make this relation a political one also. They occupied the territory by peaceful means, dispossessing few that

had any legitimate claim for redress. They outstripped the diplomat and forced his hand, and in the final settlement their deeds, though obscured under a cloud of words, formed the determining factor. If the preceding chapters have made this clear, the writer has accomplished his purpose.

His preface the writer has confined to a modest statement concerning his sources and to acknowledgments of his indebtedness to the many who had rendered him assistance. The index covers thirty double-column pages, is carefully worked out, and usable. If any adverse criticism can justly be made against any phase of the author's work it is that the story has been made longer than was necessary.

The mechanical work of the publishers is satisfactory except in one respect, that is, the book is so loosely bound that it feels as if it were going to fall to pieces the first time it is opened; but this is a feature common to the recent issues in the series.

WM. R. MANNING.