In April, 1934, Mr. Eiji Amau, understood to be the official spokesman of the Japanese Foreign Office, made public a statement of which, according to the New York Times of April 21, the following is said to be an authentic translation.

Even in this questioning age, when one is disposed to question everything, it may be taken as an axiom of international law that a nation must possess a government. To be a state, with the rights of a state, a people must occupy a definite territory, and they must have a government which can represent them to the outside world, and through which they can accept and discharge responsibility.

On several occasions in the years since 1919 delegates of the United States to international conferences have referred to constitutional arrangements in their country as inhibiting participation by the United States in the conclusion of international agreements of one type or another. Such action raises a problem of great theoretical or pure scientific interest and of great practical importance as well. It has been discussed by various students in the past, but the events or incidents of recent years seem to justify and even demand a reconsideration of the question; it is believed, moreover, that a new basis for solution of the problem can now be indicated which is of greater importance than has been revealed hitherto.

The international conventions to control the use of opium and narcotic drugs have been of interest to the United States (1) primarily from the standpoint of their efficiency in combating an acknowledged evil. They also have a more general interest in that they illustrate methods (2) of sumptuary regulation, (3) of economic planning, and (4) of international administration, perhaps capable of application in other fields. Finally, (5) the application of these conventions has raised some problems of general international law.

Discussion of the need for revising the peace settlement of 1919 has focussed attention on the methods and rules which in the light of past experience might govern such action should it be undertaken. As general settlements on such a broad scale as that of 1919 are made but seldom, the last preceding one having been in 1815, it is not to be expected that each will remain intact until the next. The problem therefore besets the parties to such treaties, as well as other states concerned, how to modify those parts the usefulness of which appears impaired.

There is virtual silence in the history of the international labor movement on the technique of preparing international labor conventions both before and at the Peace Conference. The developments of the last fourteen years in this field must, therefore, be listed as an unexpected evolution in international coöperation. It should have been easy to see at the end of the first International Labor Conference in 1919 that the methods of preparation were defective. That the Organizing Committee of 1919 should not have had adequate information on world labor conditions is understandable; but what is not understandable is that there was scarcely any consciousness of the magnitude of the problem before the International Labor Organization in drafting suitable labor conventions.

The American Society of International Law met for the 28th successive year in Washington, April 26–28, at The Willard Hotel. The general program of subjects was somewhat different from the programs of the several preceding years.

At the recent annual dinner of the American Society of International Law I listened with much interest to the eloquent and impassioned address of Judge Florence E. Allen, of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, asserting that the conservation of peace has not hitherto been, and should be made, the principal objective in the development of international law. I think that her views might be summarized not unfairly in the form of a syllogism. Undeniable is its major premise that war is cruel, costly in life and resources, full of horror—a terrible infliction on those who resort to it. The minor premise is that means exist and others may be discovered whereby disputes may always be settled and peace enforced without recourse to war. And so comes the conclusion that all these means should be sought for, discovered and used, after which war will be unnecessary and will disappear from the world, leaving us under the rule of perpetual physical peace, no matter what may be the mental and emotional differences between nations.

“The group of self-governing communities composed of Great Britain and the Dominions, are autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.”—From the Imperial Conference Report of 1926.

Among the nationalities having no diplomatic representation in China, only the Russian emigrants come strictly within the terms of “unrepresented foreigners.” The Russian emigrants, whose legal status has been defined by the League of Nations as citoyen sans patrie, form at present the majority of the foreign population (to be exact—of Western population) not only in the treaty ports open for foreign trade but also in the interior of China. According to a very modest estimate, the number of Russian emigrants in China, not including Manchuria and Chinese Turkestan, amounts to over 100,000. The Russian colony in Shanghai alone counts 20,000, while that of Tientsin is 10,000, both showing a tendency toward a continuous increase owing to the influx from Manchuria, where, since the Japanese occupation, the conditions of life have become extremely hard for the early Russian settlers.