Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/663

 Hershey : The Russo-Japanese JFaj' 653 in the Far East between the years 1894 and 1904. The sequence of events hardly needs explanation, so well do the treaties, agreements, and other documents cited cover the ground. One feature only might possibly have been touched upon which is left unnientioned, the ap- parent quickening of Russian aggression after England had become deeply involved in South Africa. It is an absorbing story of Russian advance, slow, resistless, with much under the surface, like a glacier: with a perfectly legitimate desire at bottom, an ice-free port on the Pacific, but seeking this object in ways that were illegitimate and threatened the integrity of the East. Chinese intrigue, railway concessions, and the Russo-Chinese Bank, the skilful use of railway guards, the opportunity of the Boxer out- break, the beginning of a new move upon Korea, the possession of Port Arthur, Alexieff's malign influence, the reinforcement of army and navy — all these facts officially proven were signs of the storm brew- ing which no one could mistake, least of all the Russian. And so the reader is led on to the first question of law raised, the necessity of a declaration of war prior to hostilities. When a fair diplomatic warn- ing was given, when relations were broken, when all the rest of the world knew that the next act would be in violence, how could astute Russia fail to know it too? The questions of law which the war gave rise to were numerous and serious, some of them novel: Were the purchases of merchant steamers with capabilities for military use, from neutral owners, law- ful? What was the status of the new wireless telegraphy? How shall one judge the question of liability for those dangerous contact mines found floating far out at sea? Had Russia the right arbitrarily to enlarge the list of contraband, to reject the theory of conditional con- traband, to sink the neutral carrying contraband? Then there were the varying neutral theories of asylum and of hospitality to belligerent ships ; a comparison of the declarations of neu- trality ; a contrast of the loyalty with which the combatants observed the provisions of the Hague Code ; and the Dogger Bank incident when war hung in the balance. I find myself in substantial agreement with the author's treatment of all these topics. He is judicial, he is temperate, he is sound, he is wonderfully fair and liberal in his citations of authorities. In truth the running down of many of his facts must have involved much labor. With some effort one might criticize the author's attitude toward the war correspondent and the wireless as not entirely fair to the belligerent. Possibly he follows Lawrence too closely in saying that the Chefoo wireless was discontinued in August, 1904; whereas Baron Kaneko declared that this breach of neutrality was permitted by China until late that year. I wish the real value of the commission of inquiry in the North Sea incident might have been emphasized, that is, the fact that it gave a chance for passion to cool oft'. In such minor matters here and there one might take issue, but on the other hand there is