Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/865

829 INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNALS 829 from impartial juries frequently are, how much legal trickery goes on, even at the present day. Rich and powerful persons have in all ages had an advantage in litigation. In England in the four- teenth century, at a time of peace, it was stated that because of threats of violence in a certain district, "no writs or orders of the king will be obeyed and no jurors will dare to do their duty in those parts." ^^ The Court of Chancery was founded in that century to give relief from interference with justice by the powerful. So was the Court of Requests, called the Poor Man's Court, in the fol- lowing century, and the Court of the Star Chamber, at first used by the king to bridle the strong and obtain justice for the weak, and later to establish his own arbitrary power.^^ The preamble of the act of Henry the Seventh,^^ concerning the Court of the Star Chamber, recites that, "by unlawful maintenances, giving of liveries, signs and tokens, and re- tainders by indenture, promises, oaths, writing or otherwise, embrac- eries of his subjects, imtrue demeanings of sheriffs in making of panels and other untrue returns, by taking of money by juries, by great riots and unlawful assemblies, the policy and good rule of this realm is almost sub- dued, and for the none punishment of this inconvenience and by occasion of the premises little or nothing may be found by inquiry, whereby the Laws of the land in execution may take little effect, to the increase of murders, robberies, perjuries and unsureties of all men living, and losses of their lands and goods, to the great displeasure of Almighty God." ^^ In earlier days, with a weak executive or none at all, the diflScul- ties of obtaining a fair trial were still greater. A peculiarity of primitive peoples, in which they resembled the "family of nations," increased these obstacles. The community consisted of a small number of persons, or rather families,^^ each one of which was con- nected with most of the others by the ties of blood or marriage, " Selden Society, Cases in Chancery, 39. " Selden Society, Ibid., pref., 22; Court of Requests, pref., 15, 55. Pollock, Expansion of the Common Law, 69, 81-85. ^ 3 Hen. VII, c. i (1487). 1^ Selden Society, Cases in the Star Chamber, pref., 9. (English modernized.) " The unit was not the individual, but the family. Gomme, Primitive Folk Moots, 16. Gray, Nature and Sources, §§ 277-78. i Westlake, International Law, 248. The proposal to effect a permanent union for any purpose between several fam- ilies must have seemed a dangerous experiment to their heads, each the unquestioned master in his own house. There are those who say nowadays that the natural limit of combination among mankind is the nation. But the conservative of long ago took a more logical ground when he asserted that the limit was the family. Indisputably that is a natural unit; all combinatins beyond it are more or less artificial.