must be made to have, a weighty influence in the composition and exact interpretation of Treaties.

No doubt statesmen shrink from Treaties being interpreted with the rigorous and too often pettifogging particularity which is familiar in Courts of Justice in the case of ordinary contracts. But this is only saying that, though States are styled "juridical” or “artificial" persons, they are not human beings, and political relations are to be determined by reference to principles which are not applicable to the relations between man and man. But, admitting this to the full, accuracy and certainty, where attainable, are obviously better than shiftiness and ambiguity of meaning; and the best way of securing an undeviating fixity in the signification of terms and sentences is to promote, in every way possible, the growth of juridical science, and to bring into the closest communication the jurists of all countries. When once the intent of statesmen is ascertained, it is to professional jurists, sensitively acquainted with the amount and kind of accuracy which the occasion really demands, that the formal composition of Treaties alone belongs.

In the third place, (3) there is an obvious inconvenience in General settle- taking the occasion, as was eminently done in some ments should be of the most celebrated Treaties, of a Treaty of

negotiated in

time of Peace,

not at the close of a War.

Peace to make a general settlement of a number

of long disputed questions. There are no Treaties which are, from their very inception, so brittle as Treaties of Peace. There is always an element of force and violence in the imposition of them which is wholly alien to the deliberate voluntariness which a true mental engagement presupposes, and which, in the case of any ordinary legal contract, must be present as of course.

Apart, too, from force, such a Treaty is always made under circumstances of irritation and animosity, as well as of haste, at a moment when the interests of the contracting parties seem to be violently opposed, and when the latent object of the

Treaty on both sides must be, not to further the common advantage of both, but to further the separate ends of each at the expense of the other. It is impossible to picture an occasion less suited to that impartial survey of a number of conflicting and complex interests, and that calm appreciation of the merits of competing advantages, near and remote, present and future, certain and contingent, which a hopeful settlement of long disputed questions between a variety of States eminently demands.

The later history of the Treaties of Münster, of Utrecht, of Vienna (1815), and of Paris (1856), is full of illustrations of the truth of these remarks, and has done much to bring Treaties into disrepute, and to make the obligation which attaches to them almost proverbially synonymous with open bad faith or fraudulent evasion. This imputation on the actual validity of subsisting Treaties is by no means just, inasmuch as all civilized States are parties to a vast multiplicity of Treaties on all sorts of subjects which are habitually and rigidly observed, even in their minutest provisions. But the complex political settlements and territorial conveyances which have been contained in some of the most celebrated Treaties of Peace have been, undoubtedly, followed by acts of disruption and reconstruction, which have done much to bring all Treaties into discredit, and to occasion War.

Assuming that those settlements and conveyances were, in themselves, recommended by considerations of general expediency and justice, any time would seem to be more propitious for effecting them than that of the close of a War, and any document more suitable than the same document which contains the hard terms of Peace imposed by the conqueror on the conquered. It would seem advisable that matters of general settlement and conveyance, when not forming essential terms on which Peace is concluded, should always be arranged during Peace, and at some distance of time from the closing of a War.

No doubt, at present, the susceptibility of many European

Governments is so finely strung that there is a general fear of suggesting questions of readjustment, however obviously desirable in the interests of all parties, for fear of awaking hopes and fears which cannot be quieted, and thereby precipitating the very disputes which it is designed to avoid. But as mutual confidence between State and State grows, and as it subsists between the United States of America and most European States, the anticipation of disputes by friendly settlements in time of Peace becomes increasingly possible, and the most laudable object of an enlightened diplomacy.

Advantage of providing for the revision of Treaties.

Akin to this topic is another one, to which the late Mr. John Stuart Mill drew attention, that Treaties are too frequently made without any provision for the circumstances under which they are made undergoing a complete change, and, therefore, an alternative being presented, either of their being violently infringed, or of a pressing request for their revision being tendered by one of the parties at a moment when the other party may find it peculiarly inconvenient to resist. It will be remembered that Russia selected the moment of France being occupied with the German War of 1870 to demand from England and France, and the other signatories to the Treaty of Paris of 1856, a revision of an important clause in the Treaty, and the demand was necessarily, though reluctantly, acceded to.

Mr. Mill proposed that no Treaty should endure for longer than a definite time without revision; but this could not be made to apply to Treaties which are in the nature of conveyances, which must be permanent. The better rule would be that, for all Treaties not of the nature of conveyances, the arrangement be made for a short and definite time, at the end of which time any party to the Treaty should be entitled to convoke a congress of the signatory States for the purpose of revising the Treaty. If, at the time for revision, one of the signatory States should be at War with another, the time

should be deferred till a year had elapsed after the conclusion

of Peace.

Share of popular Assemblies in making Treaties.

There is another question, in respect of improvements in the mode of making Treaties, which has to be answered, that is, the amount of public discussion, in popularly constituted legislative Assemblies, which it is expedient they should undergo. In all the States of Europe, and in the United States of America, it is the Executive Government which alone is charged with the task of negotiating, concluding, and ratifying Treaties with other States; though sometimes, as in the case of the concurrence of the Senate with the President of the United States, the Executive Government has a peculiar constitution imparted to it for this purpose.

The increasing dependence in modern States, and especially in England, of the Executive Government of the day on the popular branch of the Legislature, both for its existence and for the pecuniary supplies needed to enable it to carry out its political projects, enforces the general importance of freely communicating to the public all information on Foreign Affairs, and inviting popular sympathy and aid at every stage in the conduct of lengthened negotiations. Nevertheless, the necessity for instant action, the privacy inherent in the notion of confidential instructions and suggestions to foreign agents, the claims of Foreign Governments to have the secrecy of their own communications, within certain limits, respected, as well as the vast amount of special knowledge which the conduct of relations with a complex network of foreign States demands, must always seclude a large part of diplomatic action from the public eye.

Some amount of secrecy a necessary evil.

It should be remembered, however, that this privacy is an evil, even though it be a necessity; and is to be acquiesced in only to the extent to which it is proved to be a necessity. As the whole State is permanently responsible for the discharge of its Treaty obligations, it is of the utmost importance that these ob

ligations should be, as far as possible, thoroughly understood and deliberately undertaken by the people as a whole; and it may be fairly taken for granted that those fine stipulations, and neatly-adjusted arrangements, which are most commonly removed from the broad area of public discussion, often grow into the most potent causes of dispute and War.

All States should combine to punish a breach of Treaty.

There is another remark which must be made on the subject of Treaties. It is, that when a clear case presents itself of a State breaking its Treaty, the punishment, of whatever kind it be, should come from the hands of all civilized States at once, and not only from the hands of the other signatory or signatories. The offence is far more of the nature of a crime than a mere breach of contract or civil injury; and it is a crime which strikes at the root of the moral and legal relationships on which the community of civilized States is based. Mr. Mountague Bernard* has shown how impotent were all the cumbrous oaths contained in the Treaties of the Middle Ages, and how they have been superseded by the simplest language. But a truer appreciation of the nature of the offence contained in a national breach of faith will lead to a sentiment of such general indignation being aroused by it, that the vindication of the broken law may be as safe in the hands of those least directly interested as of those most so.

SECTION V.

OF GREAT AND SMALL STATES, AND OF THE EQUILIBRIUM OF STATES.

THE question as to what is the most suitable magnitude for States to attain, in order best to promote the interests of Peace and of general prosperity, is too purely abstract to be matter of

* See Obligation of Treaties, p. 190 of Lectures on Diplomacy.