With this meeting we finish the first decade of this Society. How great is the change of conditions in the field of international law during that period. Ten years ago all the governments of the world professed unqualified respect and obedience to the law of nations, and a very small number of persons not directly connected with government knew or cared anything about it. In this country at least international law was regarded as a rather antiquated branch of useless learning, diplomacy as a foolish mystery, and the foreign service as a superfluous expense. Now that governments have violated and flouted the law in many ways and with appalling consequences, the people of this country at least have begun to realize that observance of the law has a real and practical relation to the peace and honor of their own country and their own prosperity. They are beginning to take an interest in the subject, to discuss it in the newspapers, to inquire how observance of the law may be enforced. There appears a dawning consciousness that a democracy which undertakes to control its own foreign relations ought to know something about the subject. If we had not established this Society ten years ago to study and discuss and spread a knowledge of international law it would surely be demanded now, and we may be certain that our annual public discussions and the publication of the admirable Journal which we have always maintained, with its definite and certain informa-lion upon international events, its interesting and well informed discussion of international topics, and its supplements, with their wealth of authentic copies of international documents, have contributed materially towards fitting the people of our country to deal with the international situations which are before them.

One of the most far reaching events which may be said to have sprung indirectly from the European War, is the readjustment of the relations between Japan and China. The exact nature of this readjustment is but dimly understood in the United States, and its ultimate effects upon which is commonly called the Far Eastern Question, can be but vaguely foreseen at the present time. But the world will not fail to realize that these effects will be momentous. For this reason it is timely to trace the history of the “Japanese demands” upon China, to study the negotiations that followed and their results as embodied in the new treaties between the two Powers.

In attempting an impartial statement regarding this negotiation, it is impossible not to take cognizance of the fact that the demands of Japan for a radical modification of her treaty relations with China, followed within six months after the outbreak of the European War, and at a time when Japan’s ally, Great Britain, was engrossed in that war, and unable to give close attention to Far Eastern matters. Under the terms of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance signed August 12, 1905, as modified July 13, 1911, the two governments are mutually bound to “the preservation of the common interests of all Powers in China by insuring the independence and integrity of the Chinese Empire, and the principle of equal opportunities for the commerce and industry of all nations in China.” To what extent, if at all, that agreement may have to be disregarded in the new treaties, is a question certain to be raised when the European War shall have come to an end.

The outbreak of the European War found hundreds of merchant vessels of belligerent nationality in enemy ports or on the high seas bound to or from such ports in ignorance of the existence of hostilities, having left their last port of departure before the outbreak of war. The short period antedating the outbreak of the war, during which hostilities may be said to have been imminent, and the suddenness with which the war burst out afforded little opportunity to such vessels to escape, and consequently large numbers were caught either in enemy ports or on the high seas proceeding innocently thereto or therefrom.

A few years of experience with the Permanent Court of Arbitration served to make clear the points on which it could be improved. “There was thus created,” wrote James Brown Scott as reporter of the project for a Court of Arbitral Justice, “a single institution which might decide purely legal questions on the basis of respect for law, and broader questions of a non-judicial nature, either or both of which were to be decided by judges, that is arbiters, chosen by the parties in controversy. In modern states judicial questions are decided by judges in courts of justice, and the judges are not the direct appointees of the parties. In matters of purely private interest which may be compromised, judges of the parties’ choice are as much in place as they would be out of place in a court of justice.”

In approaching the discussion of the effects of the acquisition of Porto Rico as a result of the Treaty of Paris of 1899, we are confronted by one of the most difficult problems arising in the consideration of the relations between the United States and Porto Rico. The difficulty is due in a great measure to the absence of a positive, unequivocal and unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court in the decision of the so-called Insular Cases, which have given rise to so much doubt, uncertainty and difference of opinion among lawyers in regard to this vital subject.

If the acquisition of Porto Rico had been the only one made by the United States at that time, the problem would have been comparatively easy. It would have been enough, perhaps, to turn to the earlier precedents laid down by the Supreme Court to find sufficient guiding light and ample authority to arrive at a satisfactory solution. Congress itself, probably, would have rendered it unnecessary to appeal to the Supreme Court by doing complete justice to the people who had received the United States with such sincere demonstrations of rejoicing, friendship and affection.

In a recent editorial of one of the legal periodicals, the author quotes Alexander Hamilton’s statement in the Federalist, that “it is essential to the idea of law that it be attended with a sanction, or in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience,” and from this premise draws the following conclusion: “The law of nations, so-called, is a mere empty term or phrase, a high resounding name for something in and of itself vain and impotent.”

To most authorities and students of international law, the author’s conclusion is somewhat astounding, but the fact that the statement could be made by a prominent legal editor, illustrates the extent of the present popular distrust of the science.