Page images
PDF
EPUB

declaration of President Monroe, known as the Monroe doctrine. Mr. Canning had proposed to the President a combined Declaration against such intervention, and the message to Congress contained a declaration that intervention between the Colonies and Spain would be regarded as manifesting an unfriendly disposition to the United States. But although the Holy Alliance may be thus said to have propagated its principles for but a short period, the five Great Powers which formed themselves into the "Concert of Europe" have since exercised a superintending control over European, and especially Turkish affairs. Thus, in 1831 Belgium was under their ægis and constituted an independent and perpetually neutral State, the Black Sea was neutralised, a sixth Power [Italy], admitted to the ranks of the Great Powers, while Turkey was given participation in the Public Law and System of Europe. To sum up this part of the subject: So far as the superintending authority of the six Great Powers is recognised by the smaller States of Europe-and it would appear to have been acquiesced in by them in many instances to that extent the fundamental principle of International Law, embodying the independence of sovereign states, appears to have been trenched upon, and the theory dear to the older publicists, of the equality of sovereign states to have been infringed.

Pacific Blockade.

With regard to the means this "cabinet of nations" has employed in cases in which it has become necessary to actively enforce its decisions. These have been that innovation of the present century, "pacific blockade." Of the numerous instances in which it has been put into operation, the two Powers most interested in the present measures afford several examples. In 1827, at the time

when Great Britain, France, and Russia intervened in the Greek revolution, there was a blockade by the fleets of those three Powers of Turkey, i.e., of the coasts of Greece occupied by the Turkish army. In 1850 the Greek ports were blockaded by Great Britain, and in the last instance in 1886 there was a blockade of Greek ports by the Great Powers, excluding France. With regard to the validity of "pacific blockade" from the point of view of International Law, it is at once obvious that its name is, to say the least, unfortunate. Blockade, which is stated to have been introduced by the Dutch towards the close of the sixteenth century, is a maritime warlike operation. Inasmuch as it cuts off neutral trade it is an important concession on the part of neutrals to the rights of belligerent States. The Power enforcing a blockade is admittedly a Power at war with the State to whose ports or coasts the blockade is applied, while "pacific blockade" is applied as a measure, in theory, falling short of war as regards the blockaded State; nevertheless, as Lord Palmerston asserted in the case of the "pacific blockade " of the La Plata in 1845-1848, practically amounting to war, but is war undeclared and which other States are not bound notice as such, nor in case of its infringement to submit to attempted confiscation of their ships, the usual penalty for breach of blockade, by the Powers who are putting it in force. In adding operations on land to those by sea, the late "pacific blockade" appears to introduce a novel method of

coercion.

The Objections.

Thus there are serious objections from the standpoint of International Law, both to the agency which was attempting so lately to coerce Greece as well as to the means by which the coercion was being effected. While praising the six Powers for their "mission of peace" this

ought not to be left out of sight. That Greece or Turkey could with success forcibly oppose the agents who were putting the means into force was of course impossible; that other strong Powers, e.g., the United States or Japan, should have cause to raise practical objection to the means they employed is improbable.

W. P. PAIN.

Books Received.

Encyclopædia of the Laws of England. Under the General Editorship of A. Wood Renton, M.A., LL.B. Vol. 1. Sweet & Maxwell, Ltd., London; and William Green & Sons, Edinburgh, 1897. Price £1.

Domesday Book and Beyond. By Frederic William Maitland, LL.D. University Press, Cambridge, 1897. Price 158.

The Publications of the Selden Society. Select Cases in Chancery, A.D. 1364 to 1471. Bernard Quaritch, London, 1896.

The Yearly Abridgement of Reports. By Arthur Turnour Murray. Butterworth & Co., London, 1897. Price 15s.

Bullen and Leake's Precedents of Pleadings. Fifth Edition. By Thomas J. Bullen, Cyril Dodd, Q.C., and Charles Walter Clifford. Stevens & Sons, Ltd., London, 1897. Price 38s.

The English Constitution. By Jesse Macy, M.A. Macmillan & Co., New York and London, 1897. Price 8s. 6d.

The Theory of International Trade. Second Edition. By C. F. Bastable, M.A., LL.D. Macmillan & Co., London and New York, 1897. Price 3s. 6d. Law of Guarantees, and of Principal and Surety. Third Edition. By Henry Anselm de Colyar. Butterworth and Co., London, 1897. Price 17s. 6d. The Law of Slander and Libel. Fifth Edition. By Henry Coleman Folkard. William Clowes & Sons, Ltd., London, 1897. Price £2 2s. Grant's Law of Banking. Fifth Edition. By Claude C. M. Plumptre and J. K. Mackay. Butterworth & Co., London, 1897. Price £1 9s. 6d.

Seaborne's Law of Vendors and Purchasers of Real Property. Fourth Edition. By W. A. Jolly. Butterworth & Co., London, 1897. Price 10s. 6d. A New System of Book-Keeping for Solicitors. By Sydney Hodsoll. Gee and Co., London, 1897. Price 3s. 6d.

The Indian Evidence Act. By Sir William Markby. Henry Frowde, London, 1897. Price 3s. 6d.

Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution. Fifth Dicey, Q.C., B.C.L. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London, 1896. Il Tabellionato o Notariato. By Edoardo Durando. Turin, 1897.

Edition. By A. V.
Price 12s. 6d.
Fratelli Bocca,

Contributo a Favore dei Giurati. By Umberto de Bonis. Tipografia Elzeviriana, Rome, 1896.

La Teorica del Danno Criminale. By Umberto de Bonis. Elzeviriana, Rome, 1896.

Tipografia

Il Risarcimento del Danno Economico e la Pena. By Umberto de Bonis. Rome, 1897.

American Digest, 119 and 120. West Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minn., 1897.

Reviews.

Confederation Law of Canada; Privy Council Cases on the British North America Act, 1867; and the Practice on Special Leave to Appeal. By GERALD JOHN Wheeler, M.A., LL.B., of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1896.

The writer has endeavoured to collect in this volume, of over 1,000 pages, all the data of importance with regard to the various steps taken by the Imperial Government, as well as by the Legislatures of the Dominion and Provinces of Canada, towards confederation of those Provinces. To this he has wisely added, as fully as possible, the decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council bearing on the question. Under each section of the British North America Act, 1867, notes are given of all the leading appeals and petitions. Moreover, the Copyright Acts have been grouped together, and the American Copyright Act as amended in accordance with the Berne Convention, is included.

The leading appeal which touches on the vexed liquor question, was decided by the Privy Council last year, and has at last drawn a dividing line between the respective powers of the Dominion and the Provincial Legislatures. The value of this book is immense, comprising as it does, in a small compass, a most necessary erudition on laws and practice, which have hitherto been rudis indigestaque moles.

Domesday Book and Beyond. Three Essays in the Early History of England. By FREDERIC WILLIAM MAITLAND, LL.D., Downing Professor of the Laws of England, in the University of

Cambridge, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law. Cambridge: at the University Press. 1897.

To those who desire to penetrate the deeper waters of our early history, the publication of this book will prove invaluable. Domesday Book must be mastered to understand our English History. When the Conqueror charged his barons, legates, and justices to collect a descriptio of his new realm, various documents were compiled for that purpose; of which we have two manuscript volumes, known as the Domesday Book. Little Domesday, as the second of these volumes is sometimes called, deals with Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk; the first volume relates to the rest of England. We also have the Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigia, the Inquisitio Eliensis, the Exon Domesday, an account of Cornwall and Devonshire, and of part of Somerset, Dorset, and Wiltshire, and the Exchequer Domesday. The Domesday Book is not a treatise on law, although it contains mention of some provincial privileges, nor is it a register of title; but it is a Geld-book. Professor Maitland elaborates many obscure questions concerning Book-land and the Landbook, Sake and Soke, Boroughs, Manor and Vill, and the Village community, to say nothing of Domesday statistics. Excellent is the compilation, and of immeasurable value to students of archæology.

Encyclopædia of the Laws of England, being a new Abridgment by the most eminent Legal Authorities. Under the general editorship of A. WOOD RENTON, M.A., LL.B., of Gray's Inn, and of the Oxford Circuit, Barrister-at-Law. Vol. I. Vol. I. London: Sweet and Maxwell, Limited. Edinburgh: William Green and Sons. 1897.

This, the first volume, commences with Abandonment and ends in Bankruptcy. Not a happy omen certainly. The scheme, however, is a well considered one, and the publishers have acted wisely in securing the services of Mr. A. Wood Renton for their editor, a gentleman who has already had experience in literary supervision, being for some time editor of our contemporary, The Law Journal. The articles as a rule are not too lengthy, and thereby are the more serviceable. They are with some exceptions succinct enunciations of the law and trustworthy. The articles by Mr. W. F. Craies are especially good, although we notice from the title of his

« PreviousContinue »