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THE GREEN BAG

parts of the Empire, as well as between any of these parts." The meaning of coasting-trade in inter national law generally becomes apparent through its synonym cabotage, a nautical term of Spanish origin signifying navigating from cape to cape along the coast without going out into the open sea. Coasting-trade means navigating and trading along a coast between the ports thereof. This original meaning has been extended so as to include navigation and trade between two ports of the same territory whether they are on the same coast or on different coasts, as between French Atlantic and Mediterranean ports. And the United States has always considered trade be tween her Atlantic and Pacific ports coastingtrade and exclusively reserved for her own subjects even when the carriage takes place not exclusively by sea around Cape Horn but partly by sea and partly by land through the Isthmus of Panama. The author contends that coasting-trade as used in commercial treaties is defined as follows: "Sea-trade between any two ports of the same country whether on the same coast or different coasts, provided always that the different coasts are all of them the coasts of one and the same country as a political and geographical unit in contradistinction to the coasts of Colonial dependencies of such country." Regardless of this definition the United States has declared trade between her ports and those of the recently acquired islands to be coasting-trade and therefore reserved ex clusively for American vessels. This is as yet the only country which has so extended the meaning of the term. . "Should the requirement be dropped that the country between the ports of which trade is called coasting-trade must be a political and geographical unit, the distinction between coasting-trade and Colonial trade would be come void. The latest American extension of the meaning of coasting-trade is there fore inadmissible and comprises a violation of the treaty rights of the parties which have concluded such commercial treaties with the United Stattes as stipulate freedom of trad

ing, coasting-trade excepted. I do not know whether any of these parties has raised a protest, but however that may be, the United States adheres to her interpretation, and there is no sign that she will in the future alter her attitude. Under these circumstances all those States which now conclude commercial treaties with her will have to accept that con struction upon the meaning of coasting-trade which it has pleased her since 1898 to apply. And should other countries follow the Amer ican lead and apply the term coasting-trade indiscriminately for trade along their coasts and for their Colonial trade, the meaning of the word would then become trade between any two ports which are under the sovereignty of the same power, and it would then, as pointed out above, be no longer synonymous with cabotage." CONFLICT OF LAWS. (A New Theory). "A modern Jus Gentium," by Th. Baty, The Juridical Review (V. xx, p. 109). A dis cussion of a work by Dr. Josephus Jitta, Professor of International Law in the Uni versity of Amsterdam, developing a theory of private international law which abandons, in principle, the attempt to find rules for discriminating between competing laws alto gether. "Imbued by a spirit of genuine cosmo politanism, he ceases to regard the various nations as living in separate compartments, and private rights as the exclusive creature of national law. ' Le -droit prive1 national,' he declares, ' est une des faces du droit privd universel.' Nothing could be further from Aus tin's conception of law as a command. And it follows in consequence that any given private relation is not regulated primarily by this or that municipal law, but first and fore most by the general sentiment of the civilised world. It is possible and probable that this general sentiment may, in a given instance, refer the matter to some municipal law. That does not affect the principle. The universal juridical consciousness remains in the back ground, supporting the local law when applic able and ready to supply a reasonable rule in all cases which are not definitely local." "But it is not easy to say where the applica tions of such a system are to stop. It amounts