The announcement of the discovery of the North Pole raised in several quarters, among others the British and the Canadian Parliaments, the question whether the act of discovery gave to the United States any right of possession over the North Pole.

In searching for the answer to this question, it is necessary to ascertain the rules of the Law of Nations that govern analogous cases.

The island of Minos, which at one time is supposed to have had the great honor of giving hospitality to Zeus or Jupiter during his infancy, thereby linking its name with that of celestial beings, seems to have been predestined by the Mœræ or Fates to be the perennial apple of discord between the descendants of 'Europa' the wife of the Supreme Olympian God.

The convention which met in 1787 to frame the Constitution of the United States, embraced two earnest and determined bodies of men. One favored a strong central government; the other opposed any great increase of power over that granted by the Articles of Confederation. With what jealousy the states guarded their rights and with what reluctance they made surrenders to the federal government is common knowledge. The Constitution, as adopted, was a compromise between the factions, and that part relative to admiralty and maritime jurisdiction was the second great compromise between conflicting depositories of power.

Preceding any intelligent discussion of the status of the Panama Canal regarding freedom of passage and inviolability in war, which have so generally and so loosely been spoken of as "neutralization" even in official documents of the latest date, it will be necessary first to examine the treaty obligations of the United States under which the Canal is now under construction, and which define the powers of control over it when it shall be finished.

The field of international law in general is sharply demarked from that of municipal law, but it is the individuals, composing the population of the various states and nations, who furnish the points of contact where international friction may be generated. With the claims of a citizen or subject against his own government, and its officers and agencies, international law naturally has nothing to do. But when an individual asserts a claim against a government not his own, or against the individuals who carry on its operations, such a claim falls on one side or the other of the boundary between international law and municipal law, according to whether the claimant has or has not an adequate remedy in the ordinary courts of the state against which the claim exists.

A recent decision handed down by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, and reported in its last published report, involves the broad consideration of the status of sovereigns as defendants both from the point of view of international and of municipal law. The decision concretely confirms the opinion that no matter from what point of view the theory of international law may be said to proceed, its doctrines are based on as firm principles of sound reasoning and justice as are the doctrines of the ordinary municipal law. And this notwithstanding the popular impression prevalent, especially among laymen, that international comity is the dominant principle of international law.

Perhaps the most important of the occasional duties of the Department of State is that which involves its agency in recording the result of the quadrennial elections held in the several States for the office of President and Vice-President of the United States. Section 1 of Article II of the Constitution provided that the electors should meet in the several States, and, having voted for a President and Vice-President, should make a list of the persons voted for, which they must sign and certify to and transmit sealed to the seat of government directed to the President of the Senate.

The Chinese nationality law recently passed is of considerable interest as illustrating the tendency of China to fall in line with modern countries in respect to law-making, and her attempt to remedy by her independent legislation a phase of the anomalous situation growing out of her seventy years' intercourse with the outer world. The law aims at two points, (1) to define the status of nationality and (2) to minimize the abuse of the lax naturalization laws of some foreign countries as applied in their colonies near China.