Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 16.pdf/901

 840

Tiie Green Bag.

The other continental nations represented in the conferences agreed on the same view, and it has thus now become (though with certain exceptions) the general law of Europe. The convention on successions has also departed widely on another point from the principles of Anglo-American law. It disregards the distinction between real and personal estate, or moveables and immoveables; and upon the death of the owner of property sends it all, whatever be its character, to those (subject to certain minor exceptions) to whom the law of his nation ality would give it. ... The fundamental principles asserted [in the convention of 1904] are few. They may not unfairly be reduced to these : that a man, for certain purposes, remains subject to the law of his nation when he goes to live else where; that a man's estate, for purposes of succession, is to be regarded as a unit, and not split up into two parts because some of his property is in land; and that conflicts of laws upon any subject are to be avoided, not by agreeing on one universal law on that subject, but by agreeing as to which of several conflicting laws, under which claims might be set up, shall apply to the case, and be given a controlling effect.

IN the Michigan Law Review for Novem ber, under the title, "Russian Raids on Neu tral Commerce," Professor Edwin Maxey, of the University of West Virginia, dis cusses the question: Are foodstuffs contra band? He closes his article in these words: From the above precedents, treaties, opinions of text-writers and decisions of courts, selected, not because they favor the one side or the other, but because they throw light on the question at issue, we dis cover a definite tendency toward an increase of neutral rights. This is due partly to the increased ratio of neutral to belligerent trade and partly to a general desire to ame liorate the harsh conditions of war which has manifested itself in many directions and particularly as regards non-combatants. So that in the present stage of development of

International Law the weight of authority is clearly against considering foodstuffs as contraband of war; and it is doubtful if neu trals will ever permit the opposite rule to be revived,—their opposition to it on the ground of both sentiment and interest is too strong. If this conclusion is correct, the Russian seizures of neutral ships laden with foodstuffs, and such was the cargo of the most of those seized, billed to neutral ports such as Manila or Hong Kong or to commercial ports in Japan, constitute an extreme stretch of the power of a belliger ent which cannot be said to be justified by International Law. Were the goods billed to the commissary department of the Japan ese army their seizure would be warranted, or if billed to any one else but captured un der circumstances which made it clear that they were destined for use by the Japanese army they could be lawfully seized. But the location of the Russian fleets, particu larly the one in the Red Sea, was such as to make it impossible for them to say with any degree of assurance that the goods were not going to the points to which they were billed. IN the fourth of a series of valuable pa pers on "Russian Civil Law," William W. Smithers, in the November American Law Register, gives an account of the develop ment of the Russian judicial system during the period of the Tzarinas, 1725-1796. Of the unfortunate effect of the French Revolu tion on Russia the article says: The educational movement was the crowning act of Catharine's reign. The clouds of discontent, outspoken complaint, and revolt began to gather over France in angry premonition of the coming storm. The philosophy of her Gallic friends was bearing fruit, which astonished the Semiramis of the North. The governed were as serting as actual rights things that had only been dallied with in theory. Under the shock of the first news that the French peo ple not only considered themselves oppresssed but had dared to say so, Catharine issued a ukase (1788), revoking the right of Crown peasants to remove and tightening