The growing tendency towards international arbitration brings into special consideration and importance the relation between the jurisdiction of national courts of justice and international tribunals of arbitration.

When one nation urges claims in behalf of its citizens upon the government of another nation and proposes arbitration, how far doea that other nation’s respect for its own independent sovereignty and for the integrity of its own judicial system require it to insist that the claims be submitted for final decision to its own national courts?

The true basis for the consideration of this question is in the nature oi the obligation which constrains a nation to submit questions to any tribunal whatever.

The foreign relations of China may be said to begin with the year 1689, when the first treaty, consisting of six articles, was concluded with Russia at Nerchinsk. Although several embassies from Europe made their way to China by land and sea in the 17th and the 18th centuries, regular diplomatic relations were not established till the spring of 1861, when the diplomatic representatives of Great Britain and France took up their residence in the southeastern part of the inner city of Peking, now known as Legation Street. On the 19th of January, 1861, an Imperial Edict was issued, commanding the formation of a new bureau, named the Tsungli Yamên, for the administration of foreign affairs. By the terms of the Protocol of 1901, the Tsungli Yamên was transformed from a bureau or commission into a regularly constituted ministry or department, taking precedence over the then six other ministries of state, and has since been called the Waiwu Pu, or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The political philosophers of the eighteenth century might have been surprised if told that their favorite doctrine of natural rights was the intellectual successor of certain theories of the Roman law and of the scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Yet the “ state of nature,” which filled so large a place in the discussion of natural rights, has been called “ an exaggerated perversion of what, in traditional system, was quite a subordinant point” From Locke to Hooker, and back through the scholastic philosophy, the germ of natural rights has been traced to the jus naturœ and the jus gentium of the Roman law. Grotius and his successors preserved the tradition in another and more direct line. The continuity of Grotius with the doctrine of the Roman law was complete. “ The law of nature,” said Holland, “ is the foundation, or rather the scaffolding, upon which the modern science of International Law was built up by Gentilis and Grotius. The change in the meaning of jus gentium made by Grotius and his successors, and the influence which the jus naturœ had in forming the new conception of the law of nations can only be referred to here.

The practice of extending protection, or “ asylum,” within the walls of legations and consulates to refugees and unfortunates, rests upon no very satisfactory legal basis, but rather upon considerations of humanity. Though from time to time certain recognized doctrines of international law and certain doctrines of somewhat more doubtful recognition have been asserted in justification, it will be found that the so-called “ right of asylum ” is no right at all, but only a privilege granted or claimed where its use seems necessary by reason of an unstable condition of society.

The cause for the creation of this conference and for ite resultant codification of naval prize law can be found in the convention to establish an International Prize Court drawn up and signed at the Second Hague Conference by most of the powers in attendance.

Article 7 of this convention reads as follows:

Before turning to consider the views of several of the leading writers who have discussed the theory and practice of the most-favored-nation clause, it will he well to get clearly in mind certain circumstances which have attended its use in different periods. A knowledge of the time when a treaty was made will be found to be absolutely essential in many cases if we wish to arrive at a proper interpretation of some of its clauses.

In the first place, and of primary importance, most-favored-nation treatment has now, and had in the eighteenth century, a different meaning in European policy from that which attached to it between 1825 and 1860. While European countries now give the clause a form and an interpretation corresponding approximately to that in vogue in the eighteenth century, the universalizing of favors, which, through the intricacy of modern treaty systems, that old form might be expected to entail, is largely modified by the mechanism of modern tariff policy.

The International Opium Commission proposed by the United States and accepted by Austria-Hungary, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Persia, Portugal, Russia, and Siam convened at Shanghai on the 1st of last February, completed its study of the opium problem throughout the world, and based on that study, issued nine unanimous declarations. The Commission adjourned on February 27th.