The question as to the legality of the Ruhr occupation is partly a question of fact and partly a question of law. It is common ground that the measures taken by the French and Belgian troops in the Ruhr valley could not have been authorized by the Treaty of Versailles if the Reparation Commission had not found as a fact that there had been “ voluntary default”(manquement volontaire) on the part of Germany. The question as to whether or not such voluntary default had in fact taken place is not one of those which under Sec. 13 of Annex II to Part VIII of the treaty requires a decision to be taken by a unanimous vote, and as the decision on that point was actually taken by a majority of three to one, the discussion as to the legality of the measures taken in consequence of such decision must proceed on the footing that “voluntary default” on the part of Germany had been established to the satisfaction of the Reparation Commission. The fact that Sir John Bradbury, the British representative on the Commission, gave an adverse vote cannot, however, be left out of consideration,as it proves that at least one eminent expert who, as the representative of his country, was bound to do his best to secure the payment of reparations from Germany, was of opinion that no voluntary default on Germany's part had been proved. The doubt thus thrown on the fact on which the application of sanctions depended ought to have been an additional reason for the utmost care in the endeavor to apply only such sanctions as were clearly provided for by the Treaty of Peace. I propose to show in the following pages that if that care had been applied the occupation of the Ruhr valley would not have taken place.

It is an especial privilege to appear before the members of the Council of Foreign Relations because of their notable endeavor to facilitate an intelligent appreciation by our people of policies and action in the field of foreign affairs. Not only have you provided a forum but in-establishing a quarterly review under highly competent direction you have made one of the most helpful contributions to a better understanding of foreign relations than has ever been made by private enterprise. The need is obvious.

A year ago, when an attempt was made in this Joubnal to describe the inauguration of the Permanent Court of International Justice and the beginning of its work,1 it seemed that a new experiment in international relations was on trial. But such has been its progress in two years that the court now appears to be one of the established institutions in our international life. The Foreign Offices have begun to regard it as a sort of international fixture. It is fast accumulating a record of achievement indispensable to the international law of the future, and the court now bids fair to be permanent in influence as in name.

At the Conference on the Limitation of Armaments at Washington in 1921 one of the subjects considered at the request of the Chinese delegation was a proposal that the Western Powers give up their extraterritorial rights in China. This led to the adoption by the conference at its ninth meeting on November 29th of a declaration that the Western nations “ are prepared to relinquish extraterritorial rights when satisfied that the state of Chinese laws, the arrangement for their administration and other considerations warrant them in doing so.” This was doubtless a great gratification to the Chinese delegates, but the foreigner in China may have experienced less satisfaction at the menace therein involved to a system which tens of thousands of foreign residents in China regard as the sine qua non of their welfare.

For a long time writers on international law took it for granted that the subject of their studies was a relatively recent product of modern civilization, and that the ancient world did not know any system of international law. If we go back to the literature of the nineteenth century, we can find a certain feeling of pride among internationalists that international law was one of the best fruits of our civilization and that it was a system which distinguished us from the ancient barbarians. Some of these writers paid special attention to this question of origins and endeavored to explain why the ancient world never could have had any international law.

The completion and transmission to the Reparation Commission on April 9th last of the report of the expert committees appointed by it to “consider the means of balancing the budget and the measures to be taken to stabilize the currency” of Germany and to “consider the means of estimating the amount of German exported capital and of bringing it back to Germany” mark a further step in the efforts of the Allied Governments to give practical effect to the reparation clauses imposed upon Germany by the Treaty of Peace signed at Versailles on June 28, 1919.

Because of the deficiencies in her laws and judicial administration, China has for eighty years passively accepted the arrangement, sanctioned by treaties, under which foreigners found within her territory are clothed with extraterritorial rights. The privileged status thus accorded to foreigners virtually established in that country an anomalous system of foreign jurisdictions.Now that the Chinese laws and judicial machinery are being improved in accordance with modern requirements, what was once a Chinese attitude of silent acquiescence toward the restriction of sovereignty has today become one of active and energetic protest against its further continuance.

The task of codifying international law is so vast, the subject thus named so uncertain in nature and in limits, language so imperfect and misleading, and human reason so puny, that a person who addresses himself to the business with the intention of elaborating concrete expressions of the law finds himself with no solid foothold to start from, no certain direction to take, and no clear conviction as to how best to work. In the present attempt to study the problem of codification of international law in a few of its aspects, the writer has taken one topic only, the treaty, thinking that here we have phenomena in plenty and that discussion thereof may be a fruitful preliminary procedure. For even here, at the very outset, we are confronted with primary questions which throw us back to the very threshold as it were of the whole subject.

On August 6, 1924, nearly six years after the Armistice of Mudros, the state of war which had existed in the Near East since 1914 was terminated as between Turkey, on the one hand, and the British Empire, Italy and Japan, on the other hand, by the drawing up of the first procès-verbal of the deposit at Paris of the ratifications of the settlement concluded at Lausanne on July 24,1923. The state of war between Greece and Turkey had already been terminated a year ago, pursuant to the settlement of Lausanne, and under the terms of the same settlement the Allied forces of occupation had been withdrawn from Turkish territory; the prisoners of war and interned civilians detained by Greece and Turkey, respectively, had been mutually restored; the compulsory exchange of certain portions of the Greek and Turkish populations had been effected; and a general amnesty for political offenders had been declared. The portions of the settlement brought into force by the recent ratifications are the Treaty of Peace, the Straits Convention,the Commercial Convention and the Convention respecting Jurisdiction and the Conditions of Residence and Business. Certain instruments which did not require ratification, including the Declarations relating to Sanitary Matters and to the Administration of Justice and the Protocol and Declaration relating to Concessions, may now also be expected to be given practical effect.

There are certain preliminary observations which should be made before we can take up the question of codifying international law or the method of codification, for without a correct understanding of certain matters, which may be considered fundamental, we may not know whether we are to deal with a system of law or a system of philosophy. As a matter of fact we are dealing with both, for law develops unconsciously or consciously in accordance with the principles of philosophy. If the law of nations is to be considered law in the strict sense of the word, we must deal with it as a system of law. If, on the other hand, it is a system of philosophy rather than of law, we must deal with it as philosophy, and the point of approach and the method of treatment will be different. But, above and beyond law, we are dealing with justice, and with those principles of justice, which, expressed in rules of law, we call the law of nations. Justice is the source; the principles of justice applicable to the conduct of nations constitute the law of nations, and the rules of law based upon these principles change with conditions, or to meet new conditions, and form the body and substance of international law at any given period.