contracting powers shall communicate to each other in due course all laws, proclamations, and other enactments regulating in their respective countries the status of belligerent war ships in their ports and waters. In this way it is hoped that complete national codes of laws shall be adopted, which shall approximate uniformity and become the basis of a definite system of international law covering every aspect of this important question.

III. WARFARE ON LAND

The great achievement of the Conference of 1899, in relation to warfare on land, was a codification of its laws and customs in regard to operations on the theater of war; the great achievement of the Conference of 1907, in relation to warfare on land, was the codification of its laws and customs as regards neutral states and citizens.

Like the convention relating to the conduct of belligerents in neutral waters, the convention relating to neutrals on land did not attempt to provide for all possible cases of misunderstanding and dispute; but it took up the subject from the point of view both of neutral states and of neutral residents of belligerent territory, and made decided progress with both of these aspects of a knotty problem. It revised also the laws and customs of warfare on land, adopted in 1899, in a number of important particulars.

1. The Rights and Duties of Neutrals

As in the case of the convention relating to belligerents in neutral waters, so in the convention relating to the

N

rights and duties of neutrals on land, the inviolability of neutral states is made the basis of the articles adopted.

These articles forbid belligerents to perform certain acts to their own military advantage on the territory of a` neutral state, and they fix carefully the responsibility of the neutral state in preventing the performance of those acts; they define the relation of a neutral state towards belligerent soldiers, invalids, and wounded; they define and protect the rights of neutrals residing within the territory of belligerents; and they protect the property of railway companies belonging to neutrals but operating within belligerent territory. The conference also adopted two desires (vaux) that the authorities of belligerent states shall make it their special duty to protect peaceful in dustrial relations with neutrals, and that the powers shall endeavor to establish by separate treaties uniform regulations concerning the military obligations exacted of resident aliens.

The importance of the above rules lies in the twofold ffact that they lessen the anxieties and hardships of neutrals residing within belligerent territory, and, by removing some vexed uncertainties as to the relations between neutral and belligerent states, they diminish the danger of warfare between them and, at the same time, help to preserve intact the normal peaceful intercourse of trade and commerce between their citizens.

The following noteworthy rules were added in 1907 to the important code of 1899; a declaration of war, stating its causes, or an ultimatum with a conditional declaration

66

of war, must be issued before hostilities are commenced, and definite notice to neutrals of the state of war is required; militia corps and volunteers, to be considered 'belligerents," must bear arms openly, as well as respect the laws and customs of war; prisoners of war may be confined only as an indispensable measure of safety, and only for the duration of the circumstances which necessitate their confinement; bureaus of in formation were charged with the duty of ascertaining additional details concerning prisoners, and of forwarding their record to their government after the conclusion of peace; officers were exempted from the rule permitting belligerents to employ their prisoners of war as laborers and it was agreed that their captors should pay them a salary equal to that paid to officers of the same rank in the enemy's army; the repudiation, by belligerent governments, of the private claims, or "rights and actions at law," of the subjects of hostile powers was prohibited; belligerents were forbidden to compel the subjects of the enemy to take part in the operations of the war directed against their country, even when they have been in the belligerent's service before the war commenced; a permanent prohibition was placed on the bombardment of undefended towns and buildings, by artillery, by the launching of projectiles or explosives from balloons, or by any means whatever; in the bombardment of defended towns, historical monuments were added to the list of buildings to be protected; a belligerent was forbidden to compel the population of an occupied territory to give information concerning the army of the other belligerent or its means. of defense; the rights of private property in occupied territory were strengthened by the rules that receipts

given for contributions in kind shall be redeemed for money as soon as possible, and that all means, on land and water and in the air, of transmitting news and transporting persons or things, except those regulated by maritime law, shall not be confiscated by the invader, but only used for his military necessities and be restored and compensated for on the conclusion of peace.

The importance of the above rules lies in the fact that they are another step in the humanizing of war and in the protection of peace and prosperity from its ravages.

KM

IV. ARBITRATION

As the first conference is historically important chiefly for the progress which it made in the advancement of the principle and practice of voluntary international arbitration, so the chief historical importance of the second conference lies in its advancement of the principle and practice of both obligatory and voluntary international arbitration. The latter's work in furtherance of the principle of obligatory arbitration has already been estimated under the head of "attempts"; its promotion Tits of the practice of obligatory arbitration will be summarized in connection with the forcible collection of debts and the International Prize Court; its achievements in the field of voluntary arbitration are associated with its system of arbitral procedure for the Permanent Court of Arbitration and its Court of Arbitral Justice.

Popular expectations in regard to the first conference an highest in the direction of the limitation of armaments; these expectations were disappointed, but the conference

gave to the world unhoped for, almost undreamed of, achievements in the realm of arbitration. The second conference was anticipated in popular interest chiefly because of what was hoped it would accomplish in the direction of arbitration; the highest of these hopes were disappointed, but the field of future harvests was surveyed and plowed and planted, while the harvest actually gleaned is sufficiently good and bountiful to encourage and rejoice greatly all true patient lovers of international peace.

1. The Forcible Collection of Debts

The agreement to refrain from the use of armed force for the collection of contractual debts, unless arbitration of them should fail, was one of the most important achievements of the second conference, and one of the greatest triumphs in the history of diplomacy.

It will remove one cause of uncertainty, anxiety, and B restriction from the paths of neutral commerce it will promote financial prudence and financial honesty on the part of governments,it will protect the limited resources of undeveloped countries from the extravagant demands of unscrupulous foreign "promoters"; it will relieve state departments of the vast labor and expense of collect3. ing doubtful claims; it will relieve the United States of the burden of defending financial dishonesty, and of unduly interfering with the domestic affairs of other nations, in its determination to enforce the Monroe Doctrine it will be one more strong reason for the limitation of armaments, especially on the part of the Latin American states; it will do away with a prolific source