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their respective Foreign Enlistment Laws were, except in flagrant cases of violation, permitted to be more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

Cuban Expeditions and U.S. Neutrality.

The question as to whether our own Foreign Enlistment Act applies to expeditions fitted out to assist insurgents was not argued in the recent case of R. v. Jameson, 65 L.J.M.C., 218, and appears to have been tacitly settled in the affirmative both in that case and in the earlier one of R. v. Sandoval, 16 Cox 206. The analogous United States Statute has, however, on this point recently been the subject of express judicial interpretation in the case of U.S. v. The Three Friends, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 495, in connection with a filibustering expedition to assist the Cuban Insurgents. The American Statute makes it an offence to fit out a vessel to be employed "in the service of any foreign prince or state, "or of any colony, district, or people to cruise or commit "hostilities against the subjects, citizens, or property of

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any foreign prince or state, or of any colony, district, or "people with whom the U.S. are at peace." The Supreme Court (Harlan, C.J., dissenting) held that the Cuban Insurgents, though not recognised as belligerents, are "a colony, district, or people" within the meaning of the Statute.

The sympathy of a certain section of American citizens with the Cuban rebels has given rise to a very important judgment of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Wiborg v. The United States, 163 U.S. Sup. Ct. Rep. 632. The case arose out of the sailing, in November, 1895, from Philadelphia, of a Danish steamer, the Horsa, under the Danish flag and with a Danish captain. A body of men went on board a tug loaded with arms and boarded the

Horsa, which had previously by arrangement gone 30 or 40 miles out to sea. Once on board, they distributed arms, were officered and drilled, and eventually disembarked to effect an armed landing on the Cuban coast. The Court held that the prisoners, being the captain and two mates of the Horsa, were guilty of providing or preparing the means for a military expedition or enterprise within the meaning of the U.S. Foreign Enlistment Act (Revised Statutes, sect. 5286) since providing or preparing the means of transportation for such an expedition is one of the forms of provision or preparation within the Statute.

The question of a somewhat similar expedition to Cuba came before the Federal Court in the still more recent case of United States v. O'Brien, 75 F. 900. The Court dealt very exhaustively with the whole subject of violation of neutrality by foreign enlistment or equipping expeditions. With reference to the Statute above-mentioned, the conclusions laid down were very interesting and may be summarized shortly as follows: (1) It being lawful for individuals to go abroad to enlist, they may go in any number, and in any way they see fit, by regular lines of steamers, by chartering a vessel, or in any other manner, either separately or associated, provided always, that they do not go as a military expedition, or set on foot, or begin within the jurisdiction a military expedition or enterprise to be carried on from the United States or provide or prepare the means therefor.

(2) If the owner of a vessel provides and furnishes her knowing that she is to be used for the transportation to a foreign country of an organised body of men, intending to act together in a concerted military way, and with arms, he is guilty of a violation of the Statute.

(3) It is no offence against the laws of the United States to transport to a foreign country arms, ammunition, and materials of war, either alone or together, in the same ship

with men who intend to enlist, provided they are not a part of or in aid of any military expedition or enterprise set on foot within the Jurisdiction. In such cases the persons transported and the shipper and transporter only run the risk of capture, and the seizure of such arms and munitions by the foreign power against which the arms are intended.

to be used.

(4) The fact that men intending to enlist and arms and munitions designed to be used against a foreign power are carried in the same ship and landed in such foreign country, and that the men there handle and carry the arms and munitions is not of itself absolutely conclusive of a military expedition, it being possible that the men intend to act merely as individuals and carriers of the arms. In such case the existence of a military expedition is one of fact for the jury.

The Cretan Blockade.

As we anticipated in our last issue, Crete has been rigidly excluded from the sphere of belligerent operations in the recent war. After the suspension of hostilities between Greece and Turkey owing to the mediation of the Great Powers, all vessels which had been seized for attempted breach of blockade were released, and the Blockade itself has since ceased to be strictly enforced.t

The Arbitration Treaty.

*

The Treaty, signed early in the present year, after being "amended" by the Committee on Foreign Relations so as to be scarcely recognizable by its authors, was thrown out by the Senate on the 5th May last. Fortythree Senators voted for its ratification as "amended" and 26 against, the necessary two-thirds majority thus not being attained.

*Times, 18th May, 1897.

+ Times, 20th July, 1897.

Foreign Bankruptcies.

The question of the ex-territorial effect of a foreign or colonial bankruptcy arose in In re Hayward, Hayward v. Hayward, 1897, I Ch. 905. Under an English will a testatrix left a life interest in a certain trust fund to her son, determinable upon his bankruptcy or upon his doing or suffering" something whereby the same or some part "thereof would .. if belonging absolutely to him, "become vested in or payable to some other person or "persons."

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The son was a domiciled Englishman, but was at the death of the testatrix temporarily resident in New Zealand, where shortly afterwards he was adjudicated bankrupt by an order of the Supreme Court of that colony. The bankruptcy was subsequently annulled, but the question arose as to whether it had caused a forfeiture of the life interest bequeathed by the will. Kekewich, J., following In re Blithman, L.R. 16 Eq. 585, and distinguishing In re Davidson, L.R. 15 Eq. 383, and In re Lawson's Trusts, 1896 (1 Ch.) 175, held that as the colonial bankruptcy could only operate as an assignment of the debtor's ex-territorial property if the debtor was domiciled in New Zealand, it did not produce a forfeiture. The general principle indicated seems undoubtedly a sound one, and is in accordance with the decision of the Court of Appeal in In re Artola Hermanos, 24 Q.B.D. 640. Both Westlake (§134) and Dicey (Rule 109) seem to regard the proposition as now settled beyond dispute.

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A moot point of some difficulty has at length been settled by the Court of Appeal in the recent case of Machado v. Jones, 66 L.J. Ch. 542. The plaintiff sued the defendant for damages for an alleged libel published in Brazil. The defendant sought to amend his defence by pleading in effect

that by Brazilian Law no action for damages would lie; or even assuming that it would, that the only damages recoverable would be special damages. The Court ordered the plea to be struck out, on the ground that the mere fact that a foreign tort is not actionable by the lex loci delicti commissi is immaterial, provided that it can be shewn that it was an act which was "not innocent" by the foreign law. Lopes, L.J., said "the general principle is that in order "that an action may be maintained in this country in respect of a tort committed outside the jurisdiction, the "act complained of must be a wrongful act, both by the law "of this country and by the law of the country where it was "committed; but it is not necessary that it should be the subject of civil proceedings in the foreign country."

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Rigby, L.J., applying the rule to the present case, laid down that “there is no doubt that an action for a libel published abroad is maintainable here unless it is shewn "that the libel was justified or excused in the country where "it is published."

The Court followed the view apparently adopted by Wightman, J., Willes, J., and Blackburn, J., in the case of Scott v. Seymour, 1 H. & C. 219; of Willes, J., in Phillips v. Eyre, L.R. 6 Q.B. 1; and of the Judges of the Court of Appeal in the case of The Moxham, L.R. 1 P.D. 107, all of whom appear, when referring to the foreign law, to have advisedly used the terms "unjustifiable" and "wrongful" instead of" actionable." On the other hand Williams, J., in Scott v. Seymour, and the present Master of the Rolls in the case of the Chartered Bank of India v. Netherlands, &c., Co., 10 Q.B.D. 521, seems to have taken a different view. In the latter case (p. 536) Lord Esher refers to the "well"known rule that for any tort committed in a foreign "country an action of tort cannot be maintained "in this country unless the cause of action would be a cause of action in that country, and also would be a cause of

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