During the negotiations leading up to the Congress of Westphalia a considerable number of problems of diplomatic procedure arose which occasioned serious delays in the conclusion of peace. The convoking of a general peace congress of the majority of the European states was a new departure in international practice; and in view of the great differences of these states in religion, politics, interests and language it was necessary to reach preliminary agreements on procedure before the actual work of making peace could begin. These agreements were not easily and quickly made; and the eight or nine years of negotiations which preceded the Congress of Westphalia are a good illustration of the fact that the diplomatic practice of today is the result of an evolutionary process.

The corps diplomatique did not take form until the end of the fifteenth century; and for a century and more following its appearance, ambassadors and statesmen consumed a large part of their time in wranglings over the proper mode for conducting diplomatic business or the proper courtesies to be observed in international intercourse.

There is a general disposition to assume that four years of dreadful war have so altered men’s minds and characters and the underpinnings of organized society, that the world will be quite a different place from that which our observations and our studies have made familiar. This belief does not altogether carry conviction to my mind. The civilized world was threatened with an evil domination and combined to defend itself. This instinct and combination for defense are as old as the Greek Republics. For a generation to come the world will see less movement because of the war’s exhaustion; it will have less money to spend and must economize; it will have higher taxes and therefore higher costs of production; here and there it will experience such change of governmental forms as should insure larger self-government.

Following the precedents of previous international conferences, including those of The Hague of 1899 and 1907, the work of preparing clauses on particular subjects for insertion in the Treaty of Peace with Germany was entrusted by the Conference of Paris to various commissions.

The World War has given rise to some of the most remarkable views or expressions of opinion, particularly in Germany, regarding the freedom of the seas that have ever been uttered. Indeed, it may be said to have revived this old controversy in an entirely new form, but with the ideas frequently stated in the most excessive manner. Though, along with many other products of German war psychology, the most extravagant of these views seem for the most part to be doomed to defeat, and perhaps to a deserved oblivion, yet there may be a nucleus of sense or residuum of wisdom in some of them that is worthy of consideration. In any case, it may be claimed that they possess a certain historical or academic interest which appears to justify this discussion and record, filled, as it is, with copious extracts.

In the great Province of Shantung lies the little village of Chefoo, the birthplace of Confucius, to which hundreds of thousands of Chinese make an annual pilgrimage. It is what Mecca is to the Mohammedan, Jerusalem to the Christian. Shantung is the Chinese sacred province, the place to be protected from foreign intrusion.

Dowries v. Bidwell. This is really the most important judgment in all the Insular Cases so far as a determination of the present status of Porto Rico is concerned. It is interesting because in it the now famous doctrine of non-incorporation is developed. It will be well, however, to state at the outset that in this case there was no majority opinion of the court and that the decision was reached merely by the concurrence of a majority of the judges in what is styled in the syllabus of the case as the conclusion and judgment of the court.

In view of the great diversity of opinion evinced by the judges in this case, as will later appear, it was regarded at the time by very able lawyers and commentators of note as a very doubtful precedent which the court might not feel in the future bound to accept as the settled law of the land. So far, however, it has stood the test of time, and although the recent passage of the so-called Jones-Shafroth Act, extending to Porto Ricans a large measure of self-government and the privilege of American citizenship, seemed to reopen the question of the juridical status of Porto Rico and require the rejection or modification of the doctrines laid down or relied upon in this important decision, its conclusions have been affirmed and ratified and are largely accepted at the present time as a correct expression of the national sense. It is at any rate the only authoritative declaration of the present status of Porto Rico so far made by any competent branch of the government. It is therefore important to examine this decision somewhat at length in order to ascertain and determine the present status of the Island and the particular doctrines upon which that status is supposed to be founded.

It has been finely said of Switzerland that while the present war has demonstrated in a sinister manner Swiss dependence upon its powerful neighbors for fuel and food, and thus for its very existence, nevertheless neither these neighbors nor the world at large could for a moment spare the example of heroism and devotion so constantly and consistently set by the Swiss nation in its political and social life. This quality of devotion has been illustrated during the war not alone by the struggles unavoidable in the maintenance of neutrality, but also in the far-reaching activities of the International Red Cross at Geneva. Indeed, the work accomplished through the agencies of this wonderful organization in the internment and care of wounded soldiers and their repatriation where permissible under belligerent agreement, in the repatriation of civilians driven from occupied territory, the transmission of mail to prisoners, and the discovery of vast numbers of the missing, constitute one of the most striking chapters in the war’s history.