It is generally believed that some kind of an agreement between some, at least, of the different governments of the world, for the better regulation of their mutual relations, must follow the close of the present wars in order most effectively to promote permanent peace. Such an agreement would naturally take the form of a treaty. It is not too soon for all peoples to consider what should be its essential nature. From a state of peace to a state of war is a short step. From a state of war to a state of peace is a long one. Official overtures of a more or less informal character must come first. A preliminary protocol of some kind must then be framed, either with or without a suspension of hostilities. One or more peace conferences naturally follow, to make more definite and permanent arrangements, and their work must practically be ratified by the legislatures of the Powers concerned. Meanwhile public opinion in each of these countries must be considered and clarified. All this takes time, and the most enduring peace is apt to be one that has not been hurried to a conclusion.

It required more than seven years of negotiation to put an end to the Thirty Years’ War. Three were spent in feeble and sporadic attempts at a settlement. Four followed which laid, by the Peace of Westphalia, the foundation of modern political history. Meanwhile fighting continued, and with the bitterness which has always characterized wars of religion. The very men who finally agreed on terms of peace met in separate congresses, one Protestant and the other Catholic, one in Münster and the other in Osnabrück.

The principle of international law as announced by Chief Justice Marshall in the famous Percheman Case and supported by a long list of American decisions is that no confiscation of private property in land results from a mere change of sovereignty. Will this principle be sufficient and adequate to protect private property rights in concessions and contracts? In other words, since contracts no less than land may constitute valuable and irreplaceable private property, should any distinction be made, in the application of the Percheman principle, between land and contracts?

Where the parties to the contracts are private persons or corporations there seems to be no essential distinction between property in the form of land and property in the form of contracts. In either case the change of sovereignty must, of itself, effect no forfeiture; where, for instance, territory passes out of the sovereignty of State X and under the sovereignty of State Y, just as State Y must not allow the change of sovereignty to affect the ownership of land held by a private individual, A, within the ceded territory, so State Y must not allow it to affect the ownership of contract rights, held by A against some private obligor or debtor, B.

A Subject of warm debate in the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States was where the power of making or declaring war should be vested.

The committee of detail reported in favor of giving Congress power “to make war.” Pinkney opposed this on the floor, preferring to bestow it on the Senate. That this was also the view of Hamilton appears in the draft of a constitution which he gave to Madison, towards the close of the convention. In the debate on the report, Pinkney urged that it “would be singular for one authority to make war, and another, peace.” Butler, who followed him, thought the President was the proper depositary. It was then moved to make the clause read “to declare war,” instead of “to make war.” Gerry said that he had “never expected to hear in a republic a motion to empower the executive alone to declare war.” Mason thought that neither the executive nor the Senate could safely be intrusted with the power of war; and finally the word declare was substituted for make by the large majority of States.

Switzerland’s neutrality, as exhibited during the present European conflict and also on the occasion of other wars of the past century, does not found itself simply upon principles of international law, but rests directly upon a series of explicit international and constitutional documents and is deeply interlocked with the historical development of the country and with the foundation and growth of its government. Differentiating itself widely from that attitude of mere aloofness exhibited by a nation which declines to join a struggle in which others may be engaged, Swiss neutrality is an essential element of the country’s governmental existence and is intended by the nature and sanctions of its origin to be as permanent as the nation itself. Such an aspect of neutrality is termed neutralization; though in origin quite dissimilar to that of Switzerland, this international quality was also characteristic, at the outbreak of the present war in 1914, of Belgium and Luxemburg, as well as of a variety of smaller governmental entities or adjuncts.

The first impression that we obtain upon opening this book is one rather of surprise at the extraordinarily wide range of subjects which Mr. Root has treated in the course of his addresses and speeches on international questions, to which the volume is confined, — a range that covers the ground and sets forth the essential facts as well as the arguments which have served to build up American public opinion and to direct the international thought of this country for almost a generation. The relations with Japan, the Panama Canal, the Conferences at The Hague, the rights and duties of nations, and the protection of citizens residing abroad, have filled a large part of public attention during the last quarter of a century; indeed, some of the questions included here, like the intercourse with Mexico and the Monroe Doctrine, have held the public interest since long before our own time.

Since the outbreak of the Great War in the summer of 1914 the conviction has deepened that whatever may have been the conflict of interests between the nations of Europe due to their efforts to maintain or increase their political influence and territorial extent, this calamitous struggle would not have been precipitated, and certainly England and the United States would not have felt forced to become parties to it, had there not existed in Germany a controlling political philosophy which marked her off from other States and made her a menace to the rest of humanity. It is true that the proximate cause that brought Great Britain into the war was the invasion of Belgium by the German army, which jeopardized her own security from invasion; and it is equally true that it was the disregard by Germany of our own commercial rights as a neutral nation that was the immediate cause of our own declaration of war. But back of these proximate or immediate causes was a real efficient cause which impelled both Great Britain and the United States to enter the contest and to pledge to its successful prosecution their entire manhood and material resources.

The conception of a permanent neutrality for Switzerland sharply differentiates itself from the various phases of neutralization created chiefly after the Congress of Vienna in Europe and elsewhere in the important respect that in the case of Switzerland the Powers did no more than attempt to crystallize in diplomatic and lasting form a political condition which had, as we have heretofore seen, characterized the country during nearly three centuries. The Powers, consequently, merely recognized an existing status and one deemed essential as well to the peace of Europe as to the welfare of Switzerland itself. But at Vienna it was clearly seen that recognition would prove valueless were it not supported by an international guarantee, and one, moreover, which would not only necessarily take the shape of an international protection of Switzerland against outside aggression, but also conserve a unitary and harmonious federal administration within the Swiss boundaries. We are not surprised, accordingly, to find the conception of such a guarantee appearing in the various diplomatic documents heretofore noted which create or attest Swiss neutrality, as in the Treaty of Lunéville, February 9, 1801, and the identical treaties concluded at Paris, May 30,1814, known as the First Peace of Paris (noted in Part I of this series, April, 1918, Journal, p. 241, at p. 246), in which Swiss independence and self-government are expressly recognized: “La Suisse, indépendante, continuera de se gouverner par elle-même.” (Art. VI)

The English Custodian. The outbreak of the war found in nearly every belligerent country vast amounts of property, both real and personal, owned by persons of enemy nationality or domicile. Likewise, enemy persons were the owners or shareholders in many business and industrial enterprises, corporations, partnerships, etc. With a view to preventing such property from being used or such business from being conducted in a manner prejudicial to the national defense or for the benefit of the enemy, the governments of all the belligerent countries very early adopted measures for placing enemy-owned property and enemy business enterprises under the control or supervision of the public authorities.

The recognition and guarantee of Swiss neutrality once definitely accomplished at the Congress of Paris in November, 1815, its subsequent progress was destined to be deeply affected by constitutional struggles in both federal and cantonal organizations.

It will be recollected that the initial change in the ancient Swiss alliance to a more modern form of government was introduced as the result of invasion by the French revolutionary forces, and that from April 12, 1798, to February 19, 1803, Switzerland was governed under the Helvetic Constitution imposed by the French, which created a military state with the cantons as administrative divisions only in accordance with Title II, section 15 of the instrument:—