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THE GREEN BAG

treme necessity, a surrender of its preten sions." There can be little doubt that the Dogger Bank incident would have involved Great Britain and Russia in war had it not been for The Hague Convention. The English were naturally indignant at the unprovoked attack upon their fishing fleet. There was no time to negotiate a new treaty, and pub lic sentiment would not have supported the ministry in making one. But they took advantage of the terms of the existing gen eral treaty, and the controversy was ami cably settled, with justice to both parties. The development during the nineteenth century of this branch of international law is thus admirably summed up by Sir John Macdonnell : ' 1 Nineteenth Century and After. Age, May 13, 1905, p. 392.

"Looking back on the arbitrations of last century, they are seen not to be detached incidents in its history. We witness the formation of a new institution, a new organ for harmonious relations between states, with functions of its own; an evolution not unlike that which created ages ago in most countries, tribunals for the settlement of do mestic disputes. The sixteenth and seven teenth centuries gave the world permanent embassies, permanent means of conducting intercourse between nations. The eigh teenth century, at its close, gave the rudi ments of a rational law of neutrality. The nineteenth gave international arbitrations, which, in the words of William Penn, tend not a little 'to the rooting up of wars and planting peace in a deep and fruitful soil.'"

The Living NEW YORK, N. Y., Aug., 1905.