The conception of a law common to the entire civilized world has received a new content and a practical interpretation through the recent development of international unions. The numerous private unions and associations for international purposes constitute a spontaneous grouping of men throughout the world who are interested in certain lines of enterprise — industrial, political, or scientific — which are not limited by national boundaries, but have the whole world for their field of action. The number of such associations already created is indeed surprising. Nearly every type of social effort for the promotion of the broader interests of mankind has been organized in this manner, so that there are literally hundreds of international unions and associations. These bodies hold periodical conferences for the interchange of opinions and the comparison of results, and in many cases they have established permanent bureaus or offices.

The interpretation of treaties is a part of the procedure of carrying out or realizing the act of contracting. This work would not be necessary if agreements between states were bare expressions of international good-will, like the arrangements of friendly monarchs to interchange visits. Because, however, treaties are deemed capable of realization and performance, the process is essential.

The method of interpretation consists in finding out the connection made by the parties to an agreement, between the terms of their contract and the objects to which it is to be applied. This involves two steps. One is to ascertain what has been called the “ standard of interpretation; ” that is, the sense in which various terms are employed. The other is to learn what are the sources of interpretation; this is, to find out where one may turn for evidence of that sense.

Interstate law is the law governing the relations between the members of a confederation of states with each other, in so far as these are opposed to each other as states. It is distinguished from international law because its subjects are not sovereigns, but belong to a governed body of a superordinate commonwealth. As opposed to federal state law it is characterized by having for its object not relations of supremacy and subordination between the federation and its members, but relations of coordination between the members of the federal state. Interstate law is an intermediary conception between the law of confederations and the law of nations.

The partition of Africa, which the present generation has seen accomplished, has yielded a generous by-product in international law. Protectorates, spheres of influence, hinterlands, the position of savage and semicivilized tribes, nominal and effective possession, territorial leases — these are but a few of the topics to which the political apportionment of the Dark Continent has drawn attention and exacted serious consideration. For more than twenty years the position of one of the largest holders of African territory, the Congo Free State, has aroused much discussion. With the serious accusations against Congolese administration press, pulpit, and platform have made the English-speaking peoples familiar. How far these have been proyed it is not a part of the present paper to decide. It is enough for our purpose to say that charges of maladministration have been made in the official publications of more than one country, and that protests based upon them have been presented to those responsible for the direction of the State’s affairs. No doubt the criticisms of the past few years have tended to hasten the annexation of the Congo, before which Belgium had previously faltered. Leaving aside the details of the annexation, important as they are from another point of view, the change means the substitution of a responsible government for the Congo in place of the former absolute control by a king-sovereign, who for some years had been able, thanks to the mutual jealousies of the powers, to govern as he chose, whatever might have been the limitations upon his activities which treaties had sought to impose. The coercive power of ultranational public opinion, upon which in the last analysis international law depends, has been plainly evident in the case of the Congo State. Public sentiment, transcending national boundaries, has demanded a responsible government for the Congo. It has accomplished practically all that the concerted action of the powers might have sought to do.

In the July number of the Journal is given the decision of the Court of Claims in Sanches v. The United States and of the Supreme Court in O’Reilly v. Brooke. Both cases involve the validity of the orders of military governors in former Spanish territory abolishing offices for which a price had been paid and which the holder claimed were private property and thus under the protection of the law of nations and the treaty of peace with Spain. In the Sanches case the office abolished was that of “ numbered procurador of the courts of first instance of the capital of Porto Rico;” in the O’Reilly case the office was that of high sheriff of Havana. In each case the opinion was expressed that the office had ceased with the extinction of Spanish sovereignty, but in the Supreme Court case this was not necessary to the decision, as General Brooke’s liability had already been denied on other grounds, while the opinion on this point was delivered without argument of counsel, without exposition, and without the citation of authority other than that of the Secretary of War in approving General Brooke’s order. It is the opinion of the writer that the holders of those offices were entitled to indemnification. The facts of the O’Reilly controversy will be gone into in considerable detail.

During the interval between the inauguration of the President and the formation of the Executive Departments, the old Departments performed such executive duties as were indispensable. On July 11, 1789, for example, “ by the hands of Mr. Jay,” Washington sent to the Senate for ratification a consular convention with France. On July 22 the Senate —