vulnerability, the submarine is obliged to destroy every vessel it captures. Even if the captor's home ports be open, a submarine can not furnish a prize crew, nor can it convoy its prize to a home port, because it can not safely resist a recapture. Whether the vessel seized is legally subject to capture must be determined by the commander of the submarine; only after the vessel has been sunk can a prize court review his action. What is more serious, in destroying its prize the submarine can not make proper provision for the safety of the captured non-combatants. best it can do for them is to leave them on the high sea in open boats, without regard to the distance from land or the state of the weather. In its use of the submarine against merchant vessels, Germany, as Count Bernstorff remarks, 'only took into account the peculiarity of the new weapon.' It left wholly out of account the limitations imposed upon the use of the older weapon, the cruiser, because it could not use the new weapon under those limitations. The new weapon can not do the work to which it has been put without disregard of humanity and violation of law. For this reason, the use of the submarine against merchant vessels is inadmissible; and the attempt of a submarine to capture a merchantman is not a legitimate act of war. (2) In denying the right of a merchantman to defend itself against a submarine, the German authorities not only assume that submarine war vessels are entitled to do everything that supermarine war vessels may do, but they flatly disregard the existing rules of international law applicable to merchant vessels. It is well settled that a merchantman has the right to defend itself against threatened capture. In so doing, it of course takes certain risks. It becomes a combatant, and it may be sunk in the combat. If captured, however, its officers and men are to be treated as prisoners of war."

IT IS contended by the German authorities, continues Dr. Smith, that these rules grew up under conditions which no longer exist; that they have become unreasonable and should be regarded as obsolete. They were established when piracy was rife; they were perpetuated during the period when privateering was admissible; in recent times, when merchantmen have been threatened with capture only by regular warships, these rules have not been invoked or applied. The merchantman's right of resistance has been lost by non-user. In the place of these obsolete rules of sea warfare, the Germans would set the opposite rules long established in land warfare. On land civilians may not defend themselves against regular military forces. Franc-tireurs, guerrillas, bushwhackers, snipers are not entitled to be treated as soldiers. They may lawfully be shot, not only in combat, but after capture. From the purely military point of view, the German reasoning is undeniably logical. The arguments advanced might well be

addressed to an international conference for the revision of the laws of maritime warfare. Even there, however, the German arguments might not prove convincing. In such a conference it would, of course, be pointed out that, if sea warfare is to be assimilated to land warfare, privately owned ships should be exempt from capture and destruction, unless they carry contraband or seek to break through a blockade. It would also be maintained. that the use of submarines against merchant vessels is not to be recognized or tolerated. And it might well be argued that the abandonment in modern times of the right of the merchant vessel to resist capture by a supermarine warship has been due to the hopelessness of resistance; that the peculiarity of the submarine, namely its fragility, has again changed the situation; and that the ancient right of defense may well be maintained when a merchant vessel is threatened with destruction by this new weapon. In using submarines against merchantmen and in treating resistance by merchantmen as guerrilla warfare, Germany is endeavoring to remodel the existing code of naval warfare in its own immediate interest and by its own sole authority. In the society of nations, the state which assumes to be a law unto itself puts itself out of the law.

THE PECULIAR German idea that its autocratic government is above all law and that the promises made by it or by its military authorities are binding only when it is willing to carry them out in its own interest is confirmed in the communications which have recently passed between Secretary Lansing and the German Department of Foreign Affairs. Twelve German naval officers who were interned on the auxiliary cruisers Kronprinz Wilhelm and Prince Eitel Friedrich at Boston or Norfolk, fled the United States. Each of the captains of these crews had given a pledge "for himself, officers and crews not to commit any unneutral acts and not to leave the limits prescribed in paroles." The officers having been placed on their honor, they were not watched and were given their liberty, and at once violated their pledge and escaped to Germany. When the circumstances were brought by Mr. Lansing to the notice of the German Government the Berlin Foreign Office evidenced no humiliation at the charge. Under-Secretary of State Zimmerman forwarded the view of the German Admiralty: "The commanders of the two auxiliary cruisers unfortuately did not sufficiently instruct their officers and crews regarding the significance of the assurance (Versicherung) given by them. Moreover, the expression "pledge" in the letters to the commanders does not conform absolutely to the idea of the "word of honor" (Ehrenwort). The persons who escaped therefore were obviously convinced that they would not through their act render themselves guilty of a breach of their word of honor." The war

teaches Germany nothing. Her word of honor in International affairs and even in writing is declared by its highest authorities to be worth only what she decides she wants it to be worth.

THAT this is a well considered principle which Germany has decided to adopt in the future is seen in the opinions which have been published recently by its highest professors of International Law upon what her policy should be in the future. The Professor of International Law of the University of Kiel, declares that Germany should not again go into any International Conference with other nations and make any agreement with them as to International rules, but should simply declare them herself without the advice or consent of any other nation. And Baron von Stengel, Professor of the University of Munich and German Delegate to the First Peace Conference at The Hague, replying to the inquiries of the Dutch Pacifist League as to future International Law, answers: "The whole course of the war has shown that we Germans were chosen by Providence from among all peoples to march at the head of all civilized nations and lead them, under our protection, toward assured peace. For we not only have the power and force necessary, but also possess all spiritual gifts to the highest degree, and it is we who constitute the crown of civilization. It therefore is superfluous to continue to discuss pacificist plans of whatever nature. Nations, especially neutral nations, have only one means of leading a profitable existence-to submit to our guidance, which is superior from every point of view. No people are more permeated with sentiment and ideals than we. Under our protection one need not worry about national rights.

BOOK REVIEWS.

THE ANCIENT HEBREW LAW OF HOMICIDE. BY MAYER SULZBERGER. Julius H. Greenstone. Philadelphia, 1915.

America has not been conscipuous for the number of professional men who have taken a scholarly interest in the history of their profession. Judge Sulzberger is a noteworthy exception. On his recent retirement from the bench, his fellow members in the Philadelphia Oriental Club presented him with a volume of letters of felicitation written in the various Oriental languages the members controlled. Better evidence of his Oriental learning is shown in his own writings, "The Am Haaretz, the Ancient Hebrew Parliament," and "The Polity of the Ancient Hebrews." If his conclusions have not always been accepted by professed Orientalists, they have gladly admitted that an exceptionally keen mind has raised anew questions long considered settled and has forced not unessential changes in our point of view. Especially refreshing has been the secular standpoint.

In his Law of Homicide, we have the same type of work. It is a pity we must begin with a criticism, that it is too technical. Not that it is weighted with a load of bibliography, neither is it full of legal phraseology. To the student who knows Hebrew, all is intelligible. To the one who does not, the frequent presence of transliterated Hebrew words and phrases makes it a matter of considerable difficulty. The fact is to be explained and even excused when we remember that the material was first given as a course of lectures before the Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning. Unfortunately, this will prevent the book from having its full influence in the development of historical jurisprudence.

To Judge Sulzberger, the development of Hebrew Law is essentially a struggle between the Hebrew legal conceptions and those of their Canaanitish predecessors. For the latter, he goes, in addition to the Hebrew records, to the Code of Hammurapi. It is unfortunate that the discovery of the Shumerian prototype of this code was made too late for use in the book, for it proves the problem by no means as simple as he assumed. The Code of Hammurapi was prepared under a dynasty which was West Semitic in its origin, was in fact more closely connected with the Canaanites than with the Babylonians. Where the Code differs from its prototype, we must assume West Semitic origin. Now it is very interesting to note that the very provision, that different punishments were inflicted by the Code on different social classes for the same crime, which Sulzberger says was not probable in Palestine, is not present in the prototype and so is West Semitic, that is, quite probably Canaanite. The question of relative influences is still a most debatable one, but it may be asked whether Sulzberger has sufficiently appreciated

the importance of the non-Hebrew element of the population which persisted to the end.

Excerpts from the various codes collect all the legal data relating to homicide. We have the orthodox Massoretic text as basis, with no use of the evidence of the Greek translation, on whose basis certain changes should be made, and here, too, we have the failure to translate technical words and phrases. Not without significance is it that an author who so carefully avoids all use of the "Higher Criticism" must still, on the single basis of "the probable course of development of institutions," give the same relative order to the Codes as do the scholars who have done it on literary and historical grounds. If his actual dates are regularly earlier, we have only to utilize his own dictum that the elements in the same text may be of different ages to realize how much of truth there is in his chronology.

Our author is doubtless correct when he argues that the Code of Hammurapi and the early Canaanitish Law alike consider homicide not a crime against the State, but a private wrong to be expiated by blood revenge or by blood money, and that the amount of blood money may be fixed in a code or assessed by local or national officials. That as early as the Hebrew conquest, the still unorganized Hebrew tribes were opposed in letter and in spirit to blood money, is a fundamental factor in our author's theory, but such evidence as we have certainly does not point in this direction.

According to Sulzberger, the Exodus Code was in effect by the time of Solomon. It came into conflict with the older system according to which the slayer was accused to the city elders by the family of the slain. If convicted, the avenger of blood would kill him unless he paid the blood money or fled to the sacred "place." In passing, be it noted, that this "place" to which one flees for sanctuary, is not "probably the capital city" of his canton, with our author, but, as the survival of the word in the Arabic of Palestine today shows, simply the place about the shrine. We now have a control of the local city elders by "federal legates." Old Testament students will be surprised to learn that these newly heard of "federal legates" are our old friends, the Levites and Prophets! How the data accumulated by a generation of students can be brought into agreement with this conception has yet to be clearly shown. The new federal movement carefully distinguished between murder and manslaughter, and abolished blood money and sanctuary for the former.

Failure of this code led to the amendments found in Deuteronomy. The nation adınits national blood guilt as a result of murder and accordingly assumes exclusive jurisdiction over all cases of homicides. The council of elders no longer hands over the warrant of execution to the clan avenger of blood, but to a city or rather cantonal avenger, who is a "federal officer." Sanctuary for murder is abolished and so is blood money for manslaughter. For the latter, there is substituted internment in the "separated" city. Trial for homicide was still in the hands of the city elders. If convicted of manslaughter, he must go to the