health insurance, and the establishment of a minimum wage in sweated industries, which are called for in different countries at the present time.

COMPETITION IN THE WORLD.

While capital and commerce are becoming more completely international the conditions on which capital may be used for industry are becoming more and more hampered by local laws. These laws are most developed in the communities which are most politically advanced and in proportion to their effectiveness they tend to drive capital, industry and enterprise into competing areas where less restriction may be found. Manufacturers exposed to world-wide competition naturally complain when burdens are placed upon them from which their foreign competitors are free.

It is a common-place objection to industrial legislation that manufacturers will be subject to competition from countries where a laxer system is in force. Probably in many instances the cry is put forward more as an excuse than as a reason. But certainly the point must come when employers, subject to the various restrictions imposed by modern labour legislation, do find in reality that they are severely injured by competition from abroad. Theorists may say that higher wages mean increased efficiency; that improved labour conditions improve the whole community, and that the well-being of all its inhabitants is the duty of the State. The reply of the capitalist is that whatever may be the ultimate advantage for someone else he only sees an immediate personal loss. The lower wages or lighter burdens on his competitors will make a serious difference to his trade. He will be exposed to such keen competition that unless he can find some less legislated area his capital will be lost and his business will fail.

THE INTERNATIONAL IDEA.

That in all countries there must come a time when competition from abroad will be severely felt was anticipated by the men who initiated the system of factory control. Robert Owen, who in England succeeded in carrying in the year 1819 an Act for regulating child labour, had previously done his best to interest Continental educationalists and public men in his endeavors. He pointed out vigorously, but unsuccessfully, that the elevation of the working classes by wise reforms should be carried out by international agreement rather than by isolated effort in particular countries. In the year 1876 Switzerland proposed to take the initiative in negotiating treaties for regulating conditions of work in all industrial countries, but the first actual international Conference was held on the invitation of the Emperor William of Germany at Berlin in 1890. All the European Governments, some fifteen in number, except Russia and the Balkan States, sent representatives to this first Conference on workmen's protection. International competition was expressly stated to be the object of the invitation, and the Emperor had himself announced that while determined to improve the conditions of German workmen as far as possible, his efforts were limited by the fact that the international position of German industry must be maintained. No definite international agreement came from that Conference, but it was the starting point for a movement which has produced industrial legislation almost all over the world.

AN ASSOCIATION FOR REFORM.

To further this work an important society was started in the year 1900, and is known as the International Association for Labour Legislation. Its Head Office is in Switzerland, and the Association is divided into national sections which elect representatives to a Committee, the

different national Governments being also invited to send representatives. Every two years the Committee assembles for a General Meeting which discusses written Reports from the various sections. All the principal Governments now send delegates, and give a subvention to the International Labour Office which the Association maintains. As a result of this work, two series of International treaties have been made. Night work by women has been regulated on similar lines in every country, and the use of white phosphorus, a most terrible industrial poison, has been prohibited in every country, except Norway, Sweden, Belgium, and Japan. Now the Association has under consideration a wide programme, including the international regulation of home work, the establishment of a maximum working day, the restriction of lead and other industrial poisons, and the arrangement of hours in what are called continuous industries, such as blast furnaces, where processes go on by night and day.

CONVENTIONS AT WORK.

The match industry may be taken as an illustration of the practical working of International Labour Law. The early efforts to invent a useful and handy match culminated in the discovery of the utility of white phosphorus for friction matches about 1832. Until recent years this substance was used with dreadful results in match factories all over the world. White phosphorus is a deadly poison, and its use led to innumerable deaths and most terrible disease. Workers exposed to phosphorus contract, among other things, a peculiar necrosis of the jaw which causes the teeth to fall out or become so soft as to be useless, and even the bones of the face to rot away. The ravages of this disease were so great among the persons engaged in the match industry that, in the early years of the present century many countries took preventive measures, and in 1901 Sweden prohibited the use of white phosphorus in matches, except for export. Conferences were held at Berne in 1901 and 1906, but no international agreement was arrived at owing to the objections of Sweden, Norway, Spain, Portugal, and Japan. Later, in 1906, a Convention prohibiting the use of white phosphorous in matches, either for home use or export, and to come into force on the 1st January, 1912, was entered into by France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Luxemburg, and Denmark.

EXTENDING THE SCOPE.

Shortly after, Great Britain gave its adherence to the Convention, to come into full effect in 1913. The effect of this was to cause the Swedish and Belgian manufacturers to try other compositions. In Sweden, attention was concentrated upon the safety match, and to-day scarcely 2 per cent of the whole number employed in the industry come in contact with white phosphorus. The adherence of Great Britain brought in most of the British Colonies, in many of which prohibition comes into force in 1915, though New Zealand and Southern Rhodesia have deferred enforcing the Convention until 1916. As an effect of this example white phosphorus is prohibited by the following countries, which have not given their adherence to the Convention: the United States prohibits both import and export; Austria and Hungary do the same; the Commonwealth of Australia prohibits importation, while Mexico, Finland, and Victoria prohibit the use.

COUNTRIES STILL OUTSIDE.

The only remaining European countries with an export trade in matches which have not adhered to the Convention are Belgium, Norway, and Sweden, and manufacturers in those countries say that their trade in the East comes into competition with the Japanese who still adhere to white phosphorus. By 1916 almost every country of first-rate

importance will have rid itself of the use of this industrial poison. Each country has met its own particular difficulty, either by a modification of the original Convention, or by spreading the effect of the law over a period of years. These improvements have been made while the machinery of commerce has been running at full speed, and new methods of working introduced into international industrial life. What has been done in the match industry can be done in more highly organized industries, like iron, steel, and glass, where the greater skill of the worker, and the closer organization of the capitalist make agreements easier, and alterations less difficult to carry out.

OPPOSITION AND PREJUDICE.

But, as in many international matters, there are deep-seated difficulties in the way. One is, the idea still lurking in the minds of many persons that bad industrial conditions in one country, somehow re-act to the good of countries in competition-that any two nations may be imagined as in the respective scales of a balance, and that by depressing one country in one scale its competitor is elevated. Then there is the notion that the world contains only a limited definite heap of trade for which all must scramble, or that commerce is a race in which dire consequences attend the hindermost. Metaphors of war and contest used to illustrate transactions of trade are apt to blind us to the fact that whereas in wars and industrial conflicts both parties lose whoever wins, in real commerce there is always an advantage to both sides. Trade is exchange and exchange is not robbery. And just as every item of trade between nations makes further trade likely, so the peoples of the world are by their affairs and interests interwoven, that all men in all lands have become necessary to one another, and every one of them is, to a certain extent, dependent upon every other portion of the globe.

INTER-RELATION OF THE WORLD.

These views are responsible for many of the difficulties which crop up in international affairs, and it may be that real progress can only be accomplished when there is a greater appreciation of the fact that all communities are bound up one with another; that like members of one body, persons in one country are intimately affected by the well-being or ill-health of their neighbours in other States; that good trade, high wages, and prosperity in one State enable the population to become better customers of other countries. On the other hand, we need to remember how poverty, famine, financial panic, or industrial unrest in one country will re-act disastrously throughout the world. As that view becomes more widely appreciated we may find more support being given to those who in labour legislation, or in any other sphere are engaged in strengthening the international idea.

THE LAW OF THE AIR INTERNATIONALLY CONSIDERED.-The fol-. lowing is the Report of the Committee on Aviation upon the "Law of the Air," adopted at the Madrid meeting of the International Law Association:

In considering the question of an international code of the air-that is of the air space-it is certain that no satisfactory result can ensue unless a clear agreement is first come to as to the fundamental basis on which that code is to be built up.

This basis has not yet been agreed, a large number of divergent views having been put forward and ably supported by various schools of jurists in different countries.

The first point which naturally arises for consideration is: To whom does the air space over a subjacent State belong? or, as of what nature is such air space to be considered? for it is on the answer to this that a solution of the difficulty is likely to be found.

On this point, broadly speaking, there are two main schools of thought: 1. Those who maintain that the air space is of its nature free; this theory being that of the freedom of the air space.

2. Those who maintain the theory of the sovereignty of the subjacent State in the air space above its territory.

The first school may again be divided into partisans of:

(a) Air freedom without restriction.

(b) Air freedom restricted by some special rights (not limited as regards height) of the subjacent State.

(c) Air freedom restricted by a territorial zone.

Those who maintain the sovereignty theory may also be subdivided into partisans of:

(a) Full sovereignty without any restriction.

(b) Full sovereignty restricted by the right of innocent passage for aerial navigation.

(c) Full sovereignty up to a limited height only.

The various parties holding these separate views have never yet come to any agreement between themselves.

It is for this reason that Dr. Fauchille, who for the rest is an ardent partisan of the freedom theory, although he would reserve to the subjacent State the rights necessary for its preservation, has suggested that the most practical way of solving the difficulty is simply to deal with the right of "usage" of the air space without laying down any proposition as to sovereignty or otherwise in the air space.

We have every desire to facilitate an agreement as to usage, but we doubt whether any agreement can be practical which is based on an avoidance of the real point at issue. We therefore think it right to place on record the opinion we have formed on that point.

Now if the several views above mentioned put forward by the various groups of writers who are partisans of air freedom are analysed we are at once struck by the fact that nearly all of them admit that the subjacent State has certain rights necessary for its protection, and that of its inhabitants and their property, and that the argument for air freedom is a purely academic one based on the principle that the air (not the air space-hence much confusion of thought) is free and not susceptible of appropriation. And if the reasons in support of the air freedom are examined a little more closely it will be found that, though they also make an appeal on what are considered practical considerations of modern needs of international intercourse, they are largely founded on the fear that, unless freedom is asserted and conceded, States may close, or attempt to close, their atmosphere to air traffic. For reasons which are presently stated we do not apprehend that any such result will follow from the acceptance of the principle of air sovereignty.

The Comité Juridique International d'Aviation at its Paris Congress held in May, 1911, and the Institut de Droit International at its Madrid meeting in 1911 have adopted the following resolution on the subject: "Aerial circulation is free save the right of subjacent States to take certain measures to be determined with a view of their own security and that of the persons and property of their inhabitants."

When, however, this is examined it does not really carry the matter much further and does not appear to us to provide any practical solution of the difficulty.

If the "certain measures" which a subjacent State may take are to be determined on its own sole authority and discretion the resolution gives power which does not in fact stop short of absolute sovereignty; but if

the "measures" which may be taken are only to be such as are to be agreed between States or such as may be held by some tribunal to be necessary, then confusion and conflict seem unavoidable.

The adoption of the principle of free circulation seems to us, therefore, necessarily to lead to a code which must be full of exceptions and must create endless difficulties without any corresponding advantage. On the general question an examination of recent discussions has convinced us that the opinion of statesmen and jurists is more and more coming to accept the view of full sovereignty.

And if we turn to the more important consideration of the usage of nations we find that it is consistent only with the same view. Legislation in those countries where legislation has taken place is based on the principle of full sovereignty.

The English Aerial Navigation Acts, 1911 and 1913, assume full sovereignty rights, and recent legislation in France and Russia rests on the same assumption: while the Franco-German Convention regulating air traffic, which is stated in the Press to have been recently concluded, admits the same principle in “authorizing" civil aerial circulation in each country subject to certain conditions, and in allowing to each country the right of making such regulations as it pleases relative thereto. Further the law of private rights of most civilised countries confers property, with certain restrictions in some cases, in the air space above the land of the landowner. It is a rule of the English Common Law, which also obtains generally in the United States of America. It is embodied in the Code Napoleon, in the Codes of Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Japan, Turkey and in the Statutes of at least one (Connecticut) of the United States of America. This shows that the principle of State sovereignty over the whole air space has been generally recognized by civilised nations, for of course the admission of the rights of private owners "usque ad coelum" involves the assertion of State sovereignty to the same extent.

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It appears to the Committee impossible to contend that according to existing International Law the air space is free; nor do they think that States would be willing to accept or to act on that view of the law. But they are of opinion that subject to such safeguards as subjacent States may think it right to impose, aerial navigation should be permitted as a matter of comity.

There is no reason to anticipate that States will interfere with the passage of foreign airships through the air above their territories in an unreasonable manner, any more than they have interfered with the passage of foreign vehicles through their territories or of foreign vessels through their territorial waters. Indeed any action of this character must necessarily be prevented by considerations of reciprocal interest. The Commitee therefore submit the following resolutions:

1. It is the right of every State to enact such prohibitions, restrictions, and regulations as it may think proper in regard to the passage of air craft through the air space above its territories and territorial waters.

2. Subject to this right of subjacent States liberty of passage of aircraft ought to be accorded freely to the aircraft of every nation.

SELLERS OF LIVE CATTLE-FILLING THEM WITH WATER TO INCREASE THEIR WEIGHT.-Mark Twain's celebrated Jumping Frog finds a successor in Texas in the shape of a cow or cows. The whole case the grounds on which it is brought as well as those on which it is decided-is both amusing and absurd. This is an action by a firm of stock dealers against a railroad company for dam