The International Conference of American Republics has assumed a well-defined and dignified position among the great international organizations of the world. Four conferences have met up to the present time. The suspicions and misrepresentations by which the first of these meetings were surrounded, while still occasionally cropping up in the press and among persons who are not entirely well informed, are no longer of any effect among serious publicists. As the general character of the International Union becomes more and more established, many matters that originally led to heated discussion may now be taken for granted and left to a purely academic forum.

The recent Imperial rescript of the Chinese Government abolishing slavery within the empire is a document of unusual interest,1 and adds one more to the many evidences that have been given lately of great changes going on among this ancient people. The farreaching effects of this reform can hardly be estimated at present, but the proclamation of emancipation which is to be posted far and wide throughout the empire will be a charter of liberty to myriads of the down-trodden and oppressed, and will mark for them the upward turning of the way toward freedom and enlightenment.

The treaty of peace, concluded at Paris, between the United States and Spain, December 10, 1898, provided, in Article VII, as follows:

The United States and Spain mutually relinquish all claims for indemnity, national and individual, of every kind, of either Government or of its citizens or subjects, against the other Government that may have arisen since the beginning of the late insurrection in Cuba, and prior to the exchange of ratifications of the present treaty, including all claims for indemnity for the cost of the war. The United States will adjudicate and settle the claims of its citizens against Spain relinquished in this article.

So much has been written on the doctrine of continuous voyages as a principle of international law, and the authorities, especially those in English, have been so thoroughly exhausted, that another article upon the same subject should not be intruded upon readers except perhaps by reason of a novel treatment of the subject or the presentation of new facts. The latter will, it is hoped, furnish sufficient excuse for the appearance of this paper.

Ten years ago, on the 14th of August, the Dowager-Empress, with the entire Imperial Court, fled from Peking. The victorious army of the allied foreign powers was left in control. This was the culmination of a series of national humiliations that humbled China's proud spirit to the dust and finally broke down the resistance which had for centuries withstood the efforts of Western civilization to gain an entrance.