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valid, others as clearly invalid; while with regard to the remainder there is great doubt. Moral as well as legal considerations should be applied to each case. The first ground is legally and morally valid, if the danger to be guarded against is not contingent and remote, but direct and immediate. The second is legal; but a due regard for the welfare of his own people will make a wise ruler slow to act upon it alone. The third has a technical justification; but morality often condemns it, especially when the interference is in internal affairs. The fourth is condemned by both law and morality, as an attempt to prevent the people of a State from settling their affairs in their own way. The fifth and sixth are bad, unless the case is one of pressing danger to the intervening power, when Intervention can be defended on the first of the grounds we have inentioned, and no further justification is needed. The seventh has no legal justification; but morality may approve of it, if it is the only way of putting an end to horrible and long-continued atrocities.

C. General considerations applicable to Intervention.

Many Interventions are of a complex character, being undertaken on several grounds, or by several States acting together. In forming a judgment upon them it must be remembered that

(1) Interventions carried on by the Great Powers, as in some sort the representatives of European civilisation, or by some State or

States acting as their agent, are more likely to be just and beneficial than Interventions carried on by one power acting for itself only. (2) Interventions by a temporary alliance of States have none of the authority attaching to the proceedings of the Great Powers, and are apt to end in disagreement, or even war, between the allies.

(3) Interventions in the internal affairs of States are greater infringements of their Independence than interference with their external action, and therefore require more weighty reasons to justify them.

The doctrine of absolute Non-intervention resulted from too great a reaction against the practice of indiscriminate Intervention. It is really based upon the assumption that a State has no duties to other States and to the great family of nations, a proposition which seems to carry with it its own condemnation.

QUESTIONS.

1. Define the Right of Independence as possessed by sovereign States, and shew how it may be restricted by special agreement without derogating from their sovereignty. Give instances of restric

tions imposed by Treaty.

2. Prove that the authority exercised by the Great Powers sometimes limits the freedom of action of the smaller independent States.

3.

What is Intervention? When do you consider it justifiable? Is it lawful to intervene in order to uphold the Balance of Power?

4. Discuss the doctrine of Non-intervention.

HINTS AS TO READING.

In Part I. of Hall portions of Chapter II. should be read, and in Part II. the whole of Chapter VIII. In Wheaton Chapter 1. of Part II. deals with our present subject. Halleck in Chapter IV. goes over much the same ground. Chapter II. of Abdy's edition of Kent's Commentary on International Law, and Part IV. Chapter 1. of Phillimore's Commentaries should be referred to for a treatment of Intervention from an historical point of view. Its legal aspects are discussed in the letter on The Perils of Intervention in the Letters of Historicus. The fifth of Lawrence's Essays sets forth the theory of the Primacy of the Great Powers.

CHAPTER II.

RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS CONNECTED WITH
PROPERTY.

A. Proprietary Rights of States.

States as corporate bodies are capable of owning property. Indeed our present International Law is to a great extent based upon the assumption that they possess proprietary rights over portions of the

earth's surface; for though the notion of territorial sovereignty is comparatively modern, it dominates so completely the rules observed between civilised States that it would be impossible for a nomadic tribe to come under them. A State's possessions may be territorial or non-territorial. Its non-territorial property consists of buildings and chattels. Public International Law does not deal with its rights of ownership over them, except in the case of belligerent capture, which is treated of under the Law of War. A State's territorial possessions consist of

(1) The land and water within that portion of the earth's surface which it claims by legal title.

(2) The sea within a three mile limit of its shores, and the narrow straits and bays along its coasts.

It must be noted that

(a) The three mile limit was originally

fixed because it was coextensive with the range of artillery, and there is a tendency now to favour an extension of marginal waters corresponding with the increased range of modern guns.

(b) When a strait is six miles or less in width, and both its shores belong to the same power, it is a part of the territorial waters of that power; but if it connects

two portions of the High Seas, the vessels of other States have a Right of Innocent Passage through it.

(c) It is sometimes said that all bays, where the line drawn across the entrance from headland to headland is more than ten miles in length, are in law parts of the open sea, and free from the territorial authority of any power. But this rule, though valuable as a rough guide, is by no means universally accepted, and there are many exceptions to it.

(3) Islets fringing its coast.

They are held to accrue to, or be attendant upon, the main mass of its territory.

B. Modes of Acquiring Territory.

International Law recognises as valid the title to territory which has been acquired in one or another of various ways, which may be classified as follows: (1) Occupation.

This occurs when territory previously uninhabited, or inhabited only by savage tribes, is taken and permanently held by a civilised State. Some formal act of annexation is required, and also the establishment of a settlement or settlements; but it is generally agreed that the territory occupied extends far beyond the limits of these settlements, though there have been great disputes as to the principles on which boundaries should be drawn in such

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