The April number of the Journal has an editorial note by Professor J. W. Garner in which he reviews the status of “ freedom of the seas and states that “ since the World War a new conception of neutrality has become widespread.” He concludes that “ the present chaotic state of the law is regrettable, if not an actual danger to the peace of the world,” and thinks that the subject requires “ preliminary study by jurists and naval experts.”

The International Conference of American States on Conciliation and Arbitration, which met in Washington from December 10, 1928, to January 5, 1929, was characterized by one of the delegates to the conference as the Locarno of the New World. Shortly after the signing of the General Pact for the Renunciation of War, we find the nations of the Western Hemisphere taking the logical next step of providing machinery for the pacific settlement of all international disputes. “ It is quite obvious that it is not sufficient to renounce war, unless we are ready to have recourse to the processes of peace.” Here is concrete evidence of the good faith of the American Republics to provide a clean-cut substitute for war as an instrument of national policy. The necessity for the development of machinery for international pacific settlement has been demonstrated to the present generation by the fact that the whole nature of the institution of war changed whenman became a scientist, an engineer, and a mechanic. Mass production, under the stimulus of intensive research, has madepossible the production of instruments of destruction which threaten to destroy civilization, unless international social relations can be brought within the control of law. While President-elect Hoover was making his good-will, personal-relations tour in South America, eminent jurists from twenty of the American Republics were meeting in Washington to set up the framework for the stabilization of international relations.

Several important events have marked the seventh year in the history of the Permanent Court of International Justice. The court was in session at The Hague from February 6, 1928, to April 26, 1928 (thirteenth session); from June 15, 1928, to September 13, 1928 (fourteenth session); and from November 12, 1928, to November 21, 1928 (fifteenth session). It handed down two advisory opinions (Nos. 15 and 16) and two judgments (Nos. 12 and 13), and several important orders. It lost the services of two eminent judges through the resignation of Judge John Bassett Moore and the death of Judge André Weiss. A settlement was reached with the Netherlands Government of the long-standing question as to the privileges and immunities of the judges and registry officials; and, what is perhaps more important for the court’s future, the signatories of the court’s protocol of signature began the consideration of changes in the court’s statute in the light of seven years’ experience. The seventh year marks progress in the establishment of the court’s position as the chief agency in the world for the international administration of justice, as it marks also changes which will affect the future of the court.

In the controversy between Great Britain and the United States as to neutral rights from 1914 to 1917, both governments appealed again and again to precedents of the American Civil War. British prize courts as well as British diplomats made effective use of the Civil War decisions. Indeed, Professor A. Pearce Higgins has recently gone so far as to assert that, if one views the decisions as a whole, there was no greater extension of the principles of international law by the decisions of British prize courts during the World War than in the American cases.

The treaties for the protection of minorities were not made under the illusion that they would take from the particular state the grave burden of settling the differences resulting from the divergent nationality of its citizens. In order to prevent the internal disputes and quarrels of the state from becoming the cause for intervention by other states, the treaties created special processes by which such disputes can be legally settled. With a view to the accurate application of these provisions it was indispensable to establish a method of procedure, a system which might very well be compared in the field of constitutional law to that of the organic decrees which are indispensable for the execution of certain of the principles forming the kernel of each constitution.

On March 27, 1928, the United States Department of State issued the following public statement:

The first telegraph had been in operation only a short time when a code was made available to the users of the new instrument. From that time to the present, codes for use in electrical communications have appeared in ever-increasing number. Two principal objects have been sought and achieved by their use: secrecy and economy. To the business man, the second of these objects is paramount; and code-makers have constantly endeavored to express an increasing amount of information in a given number of letters.

I was much struck, in reading the interesting editorial comment on the “ Interpretation of the General Pact for the Renunciation of War” in the April issue of this Journal by the observations made regarding the admissibility of extraneous evidence for the purpose of construing treaties. The learned writer expresses the view that the intent of the parties may be sought outside the text of the agreement, not only in specific reservations, but also in “ interpretations, clarifications, understandings, constructions, qualifications or actual conditions set forth during the negotiations prior to the ratification.” This position is assumed to have the clear sanction of international law and also to be intrinsically desirable. In venturing to make the following observations I am not moved by the effect of the application of this principle to the particular case of the Kellogg Pact. My own view is that, broadly speaking, the interpretations contained in the diplomatic correspondence are implicit in the text of the Pact itself and, therefore, it is not of much practical moment to determine their precise legal effect. But the broader question of the method of construction of treaties in general is, in my opinion, not only important, but one of the most vital in international law at the present time. It goes to the root of international life today, which is so largely and increasingly based upon conventional provisions, involving asit does the issue whether states are to be bound by the engagements they have embodied in a ratified written instrument, or by supposed intentions which may be sought elsewhere.