Sovereign power of the respective parties. In the United States a different principle is established. Our constitution declares a treaty to be the law of the land. It is consequently to be regarded in Courts of justice as an equivalent to an act of the Legislature, whenever it operates of itself without the aid of any legislative provision. But when the terms of the stipulation import a contract, when either party engages to perform a particular Act, the treaty addresses itself to the political, not to the judicial, department, and the Legislature must execute the contract before it can become a rule of the Court."

Mr. Picciotto quotes the case1 above referred to, among others, in support of his proposition that treaties are placed by the American Constitution on a level with Acts of Congress (p. 113). It should be noted, however, that the power of the Courts to thus enforce treaties as part of the law of the United States is subject to the action of the Legislature, which may pass laws depriving the treaties of any force within the United States, although they remain internationally valid.2 Mr. Picciotto deals at some length with the relation between treaties and Acts of Congress, and reaches the conclusion (p. 126) that, as a consequence of a treaty being part of the law of the land, and on the same level as an Act of Congress, "an earlier Act of Congress may be over-ruled by a later treaty, and an earlier treaty by an Act of Congress."

As already stated, a treaty being embodied in the law of the United States over-rides any act of any local Legislature. On this subject the words of Chief Justice Marshall should be observed, in Murray v. The Charming Betsy ([1804], 2 Cranch, 118), "An Act of Congress ought never to be construed to violate the Law of Nations if any other possible construction remains."

Apart from the question of treaties being accepted as part of the law of the land subject to the limitations already

1 Foster v. Neilson, 2 Pet. 254.

2 Cf. Whitney v. Robertson ([1887], 124 V. S.).

noticed, it is submitted that, despite Mr. Justice Gray's declaration cited above, the position in the United States with reference to the relation between the ordinary Municipal law and International law is much the same as it is in England, and Mr. Picciotto appears to reach the same conclusion although expressing it in somewhat different language (p. 124).

We are pleased to observe that Mr. Picciotto discusses the conflict between International law and the Municipal law of the United States which arose in connection with the controversy between Great Britain and the United States over the Panama Canal, this being another example of the up-to-dateness of the volume (if we may be permitted to use such an expression).

A careful examination of Mr. Picciotto's work leads to the conclusion that Professor Oppenheim is right in saying that, "by inquiring separately into the relations of International law to the Prize law, the Statutory law and the Common law, he has pursued the right method," and further, that the Author's "attempt to answer a question of some difficulty, partly of International and partly of Constitutional law" as to the relation between International law and the law of England and the United States has been eminently successful, and that (as Professor Oppenheim says in his Introduction) the results of Mr. Picciotto's inquiry represent, on the whole, the true relation. We think that the Author is to be congratulated upon the production of a volume which fills an undoubted gap in legal literature. In particular, those portions of the work which deal with the relation of International law to Prize law and to the Common law are particularly worthy of commendation, as forming a fairly full summary of the history and present position of the intricate subjects with which they deal. We should like to have seen a slightly more detailed examination of recent Prize Court judgments; and as the

book professes to deal also with the relation of International law to the law of the United States, we think a fuller examination of this part of the subject would have been appropriate, but, as we have already said, in the sixteen pages which the Author devotes to American authorities, all the main principles are dealt with.

W. E. WILKINSON.

SINCE

V.-SUBMARINE PIRACY.

INCE the declaration of her Paper Blockade on the 18th February last, Germany has exacted, in the case of 95 merchant vessels and 144 steam trawlers, the penalty for the breach of such blockade of the total or attempted destruction of the vessel and all on board. As a consequence, nearly 2,000 non-combatants have lost their lives by the dastardly excesses of a maritime belligerent that appear to be without a parallel in history. The scenes of horror at the siege of Magdeburg, for which Schiller, the Shakespeare of Germany, declared "history has no language and poetry no pencil," were instances of the excesses of a belligerent in land warfare.

In the language of Mr. Asquith, the action of the officers and crews of German submarines has substituted "indiscriminate destruction for regulated capture"; a communiqué of the Foreign Office declared that the enemy had embarked on a campaign of "open piracy and murder"; and the Board of Admiralty declared that the officers and crews of German submarines who might be captured would be refused the honours of war1; and Sir Edward Carson, A.-G., in his statement at the opening of the Lusitania enquiry declared

1 For what appears in principle to be a direct precedent for this action of the British Admiralty, sec 1 Halleck's Int. Law, p. 624.

that to have sunk that unarmed vessel without notice, involving the sacrifice of over a thousand lives, was a deliberate attempt to murder in the eyes of our law.1 Though the isolation of submarine crews has been abandoned, and there is now conceded a substantial and identical treatment of German submarine prisoners and other prisoners of war, the statement of Mr. Balfour in the House of Commons, after he had joined the present Coalition Government, distinctly shows that there is no change of opinion between the views of the late and present Governments as to the character of the acts in which the submarine prisoners have been concerned,2 nor could there be, in view of the great offence, to use the language of Professor Holland, that has been committed against the public law of Europe.3

It may be preliminarily observed that when Napoleon instituted a Paper Blockade of the British Isles in 1806, he did not propose to enforce it by the murder of noncombatants, though, at the time, Napoleon was exceedingly bitter against this country, and, in an address to the merchants of Hamburg, who represented to him that his Berlin Decree would ruin their commerce, declared that his object was to ruin English commerce, and that, to secure that end, he was indifferent if matters reverted to the 4th century, and contract was replaced by barter. Yet, so far from Napoleon enforcing his terrible policy by the murder of non-combatants, he declared at the time that his policy was directed to secure the lives of non-combatants at sea, and to procure the immunity of all private property at sea. It will remain an overbearing feature of this great war that it has made a fictitious or Paper Blockade, always objectionable, a disfigurement alike to public law and the majestic structure of a common humanity. No doubt the officers 2 Ibid, July 9th.

1 The Times, June 16th.

8 Ibid, March 15th and March 23rd.

and crews of German submarines have behaved on some occasions even with conspicuous humanity. But it is not merely difficult, but impossible, to see how this excuses their action on such occasions as the sinking of the Oriole, Tangistan, Falaba, Aguila and Lusitania.

It is a curious reflection that, though the Declaration of London, 1909, by Article 48 and succeeding clauses, authorises, sub modo, the destruction of even neutral prizes (with a strict reservation of the safety of all on board), it is very difficult to conclude that Germany can, consistently with her policy during the Russo-Japanese War, act under Chapter IV of the Declaration of London, even to the extent only of sinking the ship, after having provided for the safety of all on board. The Declaration of London has never been ratified, and it consecrates for the first time in the history of Maritime law the destruction of neutral prizes. Further, during the Russo-Japanese War, Germany, then of course neutral, demanded and obtained from Russia compensation for the destruction of the German ship Thea. The point, whether Germany may not legitimately sink British merchant vessels, not having neutral goods on board, falls as soon as it is mentioned in the present state of International law. It is contrary to the Declaration of Paris, 1856, to confiscate neutral goods on an enemy ship, and, therefore, a fortiori, they ought not to be destroyed. But, as the usage of sinking neutral prizes conditionally has crept in, largely owing to Russian influence, it is idle to discuss the question whether a belligerent cruiser may legitimately destroy an enemy merchant vessel not carrying goods of a neutral. But, to use the language of the Prime Minister, it is nothing less than "assassination" to sacrifice non-combatant lives in the process of destroying a prize. With the exception of a wild rumour current, but speedily exploded, in the Spanish-American War of 1898, the history of war in modern times, since the Italian sea-codes of the