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commentary on this is: "It certainly would not be at all satisfactory to say that the United States discharge their obligation to the creditors of Texas, to whom her customs are pledged, by paying only the amount of customs received. The United States determines what those customs shall be in reference to the interest and policy of the whole Republic. The condition of Texas is changed by her annexation; by it the United States changed the nature of the thing pledged, and is bound generally to do equity to the creditor" (Wheaton, 30).

The present case does not seem to be exactly covered by any of the foregoing principles of international law and practice, except that the debts, being local and secured in Cuban revenues, Spain is no longer liable. Cuba is not recognized as an independent State, nor is she ceded to or annexed to the United States. In either of these cases it would seem that, the Cuban revenues being pledged for payment of the bonds, the Government of the State of Cuba or the Federal Government would respectively be responsible for their payment. The ground, however, on which the liability of the United States for the debts of Texas was based, namely, the transfer of the customs revenues of Texas to the Federal Government, and the latter's consequent duty to do justice to the creditors of Texas, seems to be properly applicable in this case; and as the United States have assumed the control and administration of the revenues of Cuba, which were pledged to the bondholders as security for their loan, the Federal Government is internationally responsible for their payment.

Foreign Shipowners.

The recent decision of the Court of Appeal in the case of The Gemma is one of great interest in our Admiralty

law, and is especially important to owners of foreign ships. The Gemma, a foreign ship, after colliding with another, came into an English port, and was arrested by the Admiralty marshal in a suit in rem, brought by the owners of the other ship. Her owners appeared to the writ, and by agreement between the parties, bail was given for the full value of the ship, and she was released. At the trial of the action The Gemma was found alone to blame for the collision, and on reference, the damages were assessed at a sum exceeding the amount of bail; and on her afterwards again coming into an English port, the plaintiffs sued out a writ of fi. fa., and the sheriff seized the vessel. The question thus was whether a ship already seized and released on giving bail for her full value could be seized again, i.e. whether a shipowner is liable for more than the value of the res in an action in rem, and whether bail given for the res represents that res for all purposes. It was held by Dr. Lushington, in The Wild Ranger, that a res cannot be arrested twice over for the same cause of action, and by the Court of Appeal in The Christiansberg that, where a ship has been arrested in a collision action in a foreign country, and has been released there on bail, it is against good faith of the plaintiff to arrest her again in an action in England; but in The Dictator, Sir Francis Jeune held that where, in a salvage action, bail had been given for a certain amount, and judgment had afterwards gone for more than that amount, the plaintiff could recover the balance by a writ of fi. fa. In accordance with this decision, the Court of Appeal on the present occasion held that, as the defendants had appeared and submitted to the jurisdiction, the plaintiffs' course of action was correct. This decision is another illustration of the difference (which was so forcibly brought out at the recent London Maritime Conference) between the English doctrine of making the shipowner liable, like any other employer, for the acts of his servants to the full extent of the damage done (except where

the statute has limited it), and the Continental doctrine of a shipowner's obligations, whether ex contractu or ex delicto, in respect of a ship, being limited to the value of that ship.

The Venezuela Award.

The recently published award of the Arbitration Court at Paris closes a dispute which has been going on ever since Sir Robert Schomburgk drew his line of demarcation between British Guiana and Venezuela; and it is remarkable for the unanimity of the Court and for its confirmation of the practical correctness of the Schomburgk line. The duty of the Tribunal was to ascertain the extent of the territories belonging to and lawfully claimable by Spain and Holland respectively at the time that Great Britain acquired Guiana, in 1814, and to determine the boundary between that colony and Venezuela ; and among the rules specified in the treaty for their guidance was one providing that adverse holding on prescription during fifty years should make a good title, exclusive political control of a district, as well as the actual settlement of it, being enough to constitute such a title; and another that the Court shall give such effect to occupation by citizens or subjects of either party existing at the time of the treaty as they should think required by reason, public principles of international law, and the equities of the case.

The British claim was rested on the Dutch title to Guiana by reason of effective occupation, beginning with the opening of the seventeenth century, recognized by the Treaty of Munster in 1648, and gradually extended in later times by acquisition of political and trading control over the basins of the Essequibo, Cuyuni, Mazaruni, Barima, and Amakuru rivers, as stated by the States General in their remonstrance to Spain on the subject of the attack made by the Spanish in

1758, on their port in the Cuyuni, and on the ground that the effective occupation of the country, which was necessary to perfect the title by discovery, was never made either by Spain or Venezuela, who only acceded to what the Spanish rights. were in 1810: and that the Schomburgk line, which was drawn, not with the object of showing the extreme limit of the British claim, but as a natural geographical line of division, shall be adopted. The Venezuela claim, on the other hand, embraced all the territory west of the Essequibo, or one-half of the present British colony; and was based on the title of Spain by discovery to Guiana, perfected by subsequent partial exploration and settlement by military ports, and afterwards by mission stations. It was argued that the Papal bull giving Spain all territories in certain geographical limits was of international authority, that the rights of Spain and Holland in Guiana were fixed by the state of things existing at the date of the Treaty of Munster, and that subsequent extensions could not be taken into account, especially when contested by Spain; that occupation of any part of Guiana was a constructive occupation of the whole; and the disputed territories formed part geographically of the Orinoco delta, and the Cuyuni and Mazaruni basin, in parts of which the Spaniards were the first to settle.

The award seems to turn largely, if not wholly, on the points characterized in the British case as the decisive ones, viz. (a) the extent of effective occupation, (b) the natural features of the country, and to disregard the title by discovery as unsupported by subsequent occupation. Its effect is that the British claim by the Dutch occupation of the main rivers to the possession of their basins is sustained, except that the Barima country at the mouth of the Orinoco, and the lower Barima and Amakuru rivers are awarded to Venezuela presumably as being naturally part of the Orinoco basin, although the navigation of the latter is to be open in time of peace;

and with the further exception that the Venamo, down which Schomburgk travelled on his survey, is substituted for the Cuyuni, which he proposed as the boundary. With these two exceptions the Schomburgk line is left standing, and Great Britain may be satisfied with this substantial vindication of her position, especially when it is remembered that the northern boundary lines proposed by Lord Aberdeen in 1844, and Lord Granville in 1881 respectively, would have come considerably south of the present line, the former especially reaching nearly to the Essequibo.

G. G. PHILLIMORE.

Eastabrook v. Eastabrook.

A case which is well worthy of notice, as illustrating the way in which English legal ideas are looked upon from the standpoint of the Continental jurist, is reported in the Journal du Droit International Privé (III. IV., 1898, p. 360). The question was one of divorce, before the Civil Court of Dieppe. The parties were of British nationality, but domiciled in France. The opinion expressed by Prof. Westlake (p. 28), that the status of foreigners, even if domiciled in France, must be determined by the law of their political country, was affirmed by the Court, on the ground that "in spite of the silence of the civil code on the point, there is no doubt that the French legislator meant to secure to foreigners living in France, as to French people living abroad, the enjoyment of their national law, so far as concerns their status and capacity; that this interpretation is confirmed by para. I of art. 3, which expressly subjects foreigners to the laws de police et de sûreté, and by para. 2, which provides that the real statute shall be applicable even to immoveables possessed by foreigners; and that, as para. 3, which deals with the obligatory force of the personal statute, makes no further mention of foreigners, it may be inferred that the framers of the Code

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