UNIV. OF MICH. LAW LIBRARY.

was one of its very earliest members, having been elected in 1874. Born a subject of William IV, at Hanover in 1836, he became Professor at Rostock in 1866, and at Breslau two years later. In 1878 he occupied the chair at Göttingen, and at his death was probably the best-known international jurist of the world. Some writers are celebrated as Private, others as Public, International lawyers. Von Bar was equally great in both departments. Though his larger works dealt with Private law and Criminal law and Practice, his views on topics of Public International law were invariably received with the respect due to a master of the subject. We need only refer to his recent article in the Revue de Droit International Public (1910) on International Watercourses, and to his original and persuasive monograph on Contraband in the Revue de Droit International (Vol. 26), in which he advances in a brilliant fashion the arguments in favour of the abolition of Contraband. The Professor must have felt some gratification when the British Government formally made the same proposal in 1907 at the Hague Peace Conference. Von Bar showed how little the interruption of neutral commerce affected the issues of war-and how it could never decide in a permanent fashion the true issue between the two combatants, one of which had been in this way prevented from using its own resources of cash and credit. His writings are all marked by a breadth and insight which are rare, and perhaps growing rarer. The Theory and Practice of International Private Law has been translated into English by Gillespie. Von Bar was a frequent attendant at international gatherings. His slight figure, burdened with baggage, would be hurried by his indomitable spirit in all weathers across the Belts or the Channel: and when he spoke no one could have been listened to with more admiring esteem. We will add that universal sympathy will be felt with Mrs. von Bar, whose gracious kindliness has been experienced by many English friends.

He

As a

Privy Councillor T. M. C. Asser seemed much younger, though he was actually born in 1838 (29th April). was born at and studied in Amsterdam, and practised there at the Bar, becoming Professor of Law in 1862. His ability having marked him out for State employment, he was made legal adviser to the Foreign Office in 1875; Edinburgh made him an LL.D. on the occasion of her great Tercentenary celebration of 1884: and in 1891 he was made a member of the Provincial Council of North Holland. Readers of this magazine will be familiar with his proposal to fuse the criteria of nationality and domicile by the adoption of a novel "private-law nationality" which is practically indistinguishable from our conception of domicile. compromise which would give Anglo-Argentine-Americans the kernel of substance, whilst according to Continental ideas the shell of nomenclature, this proposal would certainly find little serious opposition on this side of the channel. On the whole, Asser's most conspicuous work was done in the sphere of Private International law. He was best known in our country as one of the founders and editors of the Revue de Droit International. Asser was a personage of handsome and commanding presence, and of the kindliest nature. His interest in Peace was absorbing and genuine. Like von Bar, he was a Member of the Permanent Arbitral Tribunal at the Hague. But he was also a most indefatigable pacificist, though by no means an impracticable one, and his work for international peace was the ungrudging service of a great man. He was at the time of his death Hon. President of the Netherlands Branch of the International Law Association, of which association he had long been a Vice-President.

Den Beer Poortugael.

More than a passing reference ought also to be made to the labours in the cause of the Law of Nations of the late

Privy Councillor, General den Beer-Poortugael. A countryman of Asser, General den Beer Poortugael was born at Leyden on 1st February, 1832, and became in due course lieut.-general in the Dutch service. He was professor at the military staff college and subsequently Director: and naturally was attached to the Dutch mission which attended the Brussels Conference on the Laws of War in 1874. He subsequently filled various high offices, including that of Minister of War. His efforts at one Peace Congress after another, on behalf of the small nationalities, are well known. The right of an unorganised civil population to combine in self-defence against an invading enemy, is frowned upon by the military empires. Their cue is to treat every such combatant as a rebel, whether the area of operations has been reduced to military occupation or not. Switzerland, Holland, Norway, and Great Britain, which rely in a large measure upon the reserve which they possess in their civil population, desired to give that population a regular indefeasible authorisation to take the field in self-defence, so that they would be entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war. Their efforts were in a large measure successful: the only loophole left to an invader (and it is rather a large one) being to regard himself as formally "in occupation" of territories to some point within which his vedettes have paid a hurried visit. At the Hague Conference of 1899 Den Beer Poortugael's address on Disarmament is said to have been "most eloquent and brilliant": and he again represented the Netherlands at the Conference of 1907. He was elected to the Institute of International Law in 1874, becoming a full member in 1888. In the latter year was published his work on International Maritime Law, in which field he displayed a soundness of perception and a grasp of principle which are not only surprising in a soldier, but are not excelled by any of the recognised authorities on that special subject. Indeed, they are considerably more

conspicuous than in the case of some admired authorities. His dissent from the novel doctrine of continuous voyage, even when applied to obvious munitions of war alone, is recorded in the Annuaires of the Institute (vols. 13 and 14). He was one of the old school of jurists, holding firmly to clear and positive conceptions as constituting the very essence of law: and his loss, even at the advanced age which he had reached, will be severely felt.

Institute of International Law.

The session of the Institute, which took place under the presidency of Prof. T. E. Holland, in Oxford, last August, was almost entirely devoted to the discussion of the draft code of the laws of war at sea as between belligerents. It is understood that the new principle that warships cannot be commissioned except within the territory of the commissioning Power was approved. It will, however, be very difficult to treat as a pirate a vessel for which a belligerent State assumes full responsibility. And if the new rule means less than this, it must be of little avail.

TH. B.

VIII. NOTES ON RECENT CASES (ENGLISH).

IT

T is rarely indeed that one has occasion to express doubt as to the soundness of any decision of Mr. Justice (now Lord Justice) Swinfen Eady, and when the occasion does arise, one does so with great misgiving. Therefore, one feels the more satisfaction when one has doubted to find in the result that the doubt was justified. In Central London Railway Company v. City of London Tax Commissioners (L. R. [1911], I Ch. 467), that very learned judge decided two points. The first was that, when land is freed from the land tax so are all future works erected on and under it. The second was that, when the tax on land fronting a

highway is redeemed, there is no presumption that the redemption extends over the highway ad medium filum. In commenting on these decisions, while agreeing respectfully with the first, we expressed strong doubt as to the second. (Law Magazine, Vol. XXXVI, p. 475.) On appeal, the Court of Appeal, by a majority (Cozens-Hardy, M.R., and Kennedy, L.J., Farwell, L.J., dissenting), reversed the second decision (L. R. [1911], 2 Ch. 467). And now that reversal had been unanimously sustained by the House of Lords (L. R. [1913], A. C. 364).

The main argument of the appellants was that the land tax was to be assessed on the "annual value" of the land, and as the land under the highway had at the time of redemption no annual value, it could never have been assessed. In this connection it may be noted that the House of Lords has just decided that, for the purposes of the land taxes imposed by the Finance (1909-10) Act 1910 "the assessable site value of land" may be shown in the valuation as a minus quantity, in other words as less than nothing (Inland Revenue Commissioners v. Herbert (L. R. [1913], A. C. 326).

Two tendencies have lately been displayed by some Courts. The one has been to hear cases privately, either in camera or in chambers. The other to keep from the public information as to what has actually happened in open Court. Both were usually followed in the interest, not of justice, but of one or both of the parties. And both were enforced by treating or threatening to treat any disclosure of the proceedings as a criminal contempt of Court. Courses better calculated to bring the administration of the law under suspicion or to prejudice the characters of innocent persons it is difficult to conceive. It is to be hoped that the decision of the highest tribunal in the land