The reëstablishment of treaty relations with Germany seems to have afforded occasion for a new type of treaty incorporating new principles,restating old ones and generally rearranging the subject-matter considered.Provisions relating to consular privileges and immunities show the influence of this new consideration. The Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights with Germany has been followed by similar treaties with Estonia and Hungary. Ratification of a like treaty with Salvador has been advised and consented to by the United States Senate, but the exchange of ratifications has not yet been announced. A consular convention with Cuba follows the corresponding provisions in the treaties of friendship, commerce and consular rights so far as consular privileges and immunities are concerned. As press reports have indicated that similar treaties may be negotiated with other states, it is possible that there may be an extensive redefinition of consular privileges and immunities along the lines of the provisions of the recently published treaties. In the light of this possibility the contents of this part of the treaties are of great importance and an examination of them of present interest. As the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights with Germany was the first of the series,the following discussion is based upon the provisions of that treaty, with attention being given to the more important departures in the later treaties.

These two careful and elaborate studies of the problem of disarmament have attracted wide attention among its students in Europe and the United States. Both have appeared in the year in which probably more definite thought than ever before has been given to the subject by men earnestly striving to find the entrance to some path that may lead to the solution. These volumes plainly show that the writers—than whom no one can have thought more deeply—are convinced that it is not a problem for abstract reasoning. It is not like an equation in mathematics where the application of definite rules leads to one exact conclusion. In such a problem, if there are unknown factors, they are inert things; they are subjected, without evoking protest, to any sort of torturing process of analytical reasoning to determine their value, and that being done the problem is solved. But in this other problem the factors are living, sentient things; human beings acting of themselves in the mass or under the influence of individuals; swayed by every sentiment of the mind, fear, suspicion, greed, ambition, and by the highest and purest as well; sentiments perhaps dormant at one time, at another in intense activity, sometimes thinking and reasoning and again appearing as a wild outburst of senseless passion, and at all times subject to direction towards purposes good or ill according to the character of some guiding mind. No wonder that so many think it a waste of time to study the problem at all while, at the best, it seems to be one the solution of which can be arrived at only by a long slow process of empiricism.

The differences between the United States and Mexico which have been occasioned by Article XXVI I of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 and the regulatory laws designed to give it effect are concerned with such important questions of international law as to warrant a rather extended examination of the principles involved and the contentions of the two parties. This is particularly true in view of the fact that the question has been said to be one upon which there can be no difference of rational opinion, and further that it is not a justiciable one.

The Intimate Papers of Colonel House1 is one of the most interesting collections of memoirs that has appeared in the post-war period. The contacts of Colonel House, as personal representative of President Wilson, with diplomats and statesmen in the stirring years of the war was probably broader than that of almost any other person, and certainly broader than that of any other American. His papers are so full of interesting comment on men and events that they furnish source material for many essays on different aspects of the times. The purpose of this article is merely to sketch Colonel House’s connection with the main international events of the Wilson Administration up to the entrance of the United States into the war. For some reason, his narrative ends with the period of American neutrality and the entrance of the United States into the war. Colonel House’s activities in connection with the war program of the United States and the Peace Conference at Paris are not related, and the world must hold its patience for a third volume on this critical period.

The Supreme Court of the United States, by Mr. Justice Brandeis, recently handed down its decision in Tutun v. United States, and Neuberger v. United States. This is the latest of the important Supreme Court cases determining the law of naturalization, of citizenship, and of expatriation. During the past fifteen years they have comprised Johannessen v. United States, Mansour v. United States, Luria v. United States, Maibaum v. United States, Mackenzie v. Hare, United States v. Ginsberg, United States v. Ness, United States v. Morena, Ozawa v. United States, Yamashita v. Hinkle, United States v. Thind, Kaplan v. Tod, and Toyota v. United States.

In the vast field of international relationships, one of the intricate problems is that which has centered around the question of nationality. No uniform rules have been laid down either by conventional or by customary international law for the determination of nationality. Unfortunately the whole matter is regulated by municipal law, and in consequence of the diversity of regulations many conflicts have resulted. There are additional complications encountered in that phase of the problem which deals with the relation of state succession and nationality. When a state acquires new territory by gift, cession, conquest, or by whatever means, the political status of the inhabitants of the territory must be determined.

At the Imperial Conference of 1926, the participating British governments agreed that the Dominions and Great Britain “ 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 common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations”

In the present study the phrase “ foreign policy ” will be used to refer to the purposes or objectives and the corresponding program of action held in view by one nation in carrying on its relations with other nations. More especially it is intended to refer beyond the surface current of events which constitute the foreign affairs or diplomatic relations of a nation in an objective sense, and which are frequently confused with the rules or tenets of policy followed by the nation in conducting its foreign affairs, and to indicate solely the principles guiding the nation in this activity. Without interpretation in terms of principle, a record of the discontinuous incidents in the foreign affairs of a nation is as meaningless as a list of the names of the kings of England.

The scope of activities covered by the rules of unneutral service is much more limited than one might casually suppose from the term itself. As determined by practice, the activities included are only those of privately owned vessels, committed in such a way as to afford actual assistance to a belligerent force, and of such a nature as to constitute a hostile action for which the agent might be found responsible.

The scientific organizations which flourished before the World War have had great difficulty in continuing their labors after its termination. The Institute of International Law has been no exception. It was to have met in Munich in September, 1914, and its program had been completely arranged; but the war which started in August, 1914, necessarily put an end to all arrangements for the session. A resort to arms inevitably brings with it a desire for its avoidance; and the greater the war, the greater the desire. A decade, a generation struggles in the mists and shadows, seeking to extricate itself from the post-war spirit, condemning the past somewhat indiscriminately and advocating innovations which, new in expression, are nevertheless the aspirations of those who, in all time, crushed and bruised by force, seek to replace it by justice.

In the April, 1926 number of this Journal, Professor Quincy Wright remarks, apropos of the Damascus bombardment: