Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 16.pdf/393

 34-6

at the outset in sending their armies to Korea. The position, as regards the Alanchurian portion of the Chinese Empire oc cupied by Russia, is altogether anomalous. That occupation, illegal though it may be, was a fait accompli before the war. A glance at the map is sufficient to show that it would be pedantic under existing circumstances to expect Russia to refrain from any steps that may be necessary to protect the railway and hold the adjacent territory, even though the trading rights of neutrals at treaty ports be interfered with. On the other hand, as China has been unable to preserve her neu trality, Japan will be within her rights in attacking the enemy on Chinese territory. Nor can she be expected to draw the line strictly at places already occupied by the Russion forces. IN The Harvard Law Rcviav for April, Judge Simeon E. Baldwin of the Yale Law School, outlines the "Recent Progress To wards Agreement on Rules to Prevent a Conflict of Laws." After mentioning the two Pan-American Congresses of 1889 and of 1901-2, Judge Baldwin says: In 1893 the Netherlands issued invitations to such European States as she judged best, to send delegates to a Conference at The Hague to consider the adoption of identical laws or of an international convention on certain subjects relating to personal status, private property, and the forms of legal doc uments. Thirteen nations sent delegates, and similar conferences were held in 1894 and 1900, resulting in conventions for deter mining what law shall be applicable in case of conflicting claims as to matters of mar riage, divorce, and guardianship, and to suc cessions and bankruptcies, and to regulate certain methods of judicial procedure affect ing foreigners. The conventions as to the celebration of marriage, adjudication of di vorce and guardianship, were, by the summer of 1902, ratified by the executive depart ments of twelve of the powers. To that con cerning successions ten acceded, but as Rus sia and Hungary refused their assent, the Netherlands has called another Conference

to revise that and, as to some points, the others, which will assemble in May, 1904- ••• If The Hague conventions, as they may he revised and perfected this year, should go uito full force in eastern and central Europe, it is probable that on certain points, the United States would eventually be glad to express their concurrence in them, by some formal act of adherence, on the part of the treaty making power. There may be constitutional objections to such action in respect to some of the matters involved, ow ing to the peculiar relations of the States to the LTnited States. But so far as the United States can speak, it would be obviously de sirable that they should. SOME interesting points of "Japanese Law and Jurisprudence" are noted in the MarchApril number of the American Law Review, in an article by A. H. Marsh, К. С. of the Toronto Bar, based on two lectures by Dr. R. Masujima, of the Tokyo Bar. Says the ar ticle: The learned lecturer tells us that the adop tion by Japan of her present system of codes. was hastened by the desire of the Japanese people to rid their country of the ex-territo rial jurisdiction exercised in Japan by the courts of foreign nations, and it could not be expected that the foreign nations would con cede this point unless Japan first furnished herself with a recognized and uniform systemof laws. . . . It is astounding to learn from these lec tures that the judges of Japan are not gen erally drawn from the bar, but are appointed directly from the graduates of law schools and colleges, and that the appointments are based upon examination: that preeminence at the bar is not a necessary qualification for the bench, and that the bench is not a post of honor and émolument to which men look forward with ambition. . . . We learn from these lectures that people in Japan very rarely think of the lawyer asa professional guide, but that they generally do their own legal business, and rarely con sult a lawyer until after a suit is actually