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Editorial Department.

belligerent occupation, and to claim the free right of passage over the waters out side that boundary. Neutrals may have the right to claim that the high seas not within the immediate sphere of belligerent activity shall not be rendered unnecessarily danger ous to their ships lawfully passing, but they cannot complain of mala fides or reckless ness of belligerents if they do not take ac count of new conditions of warfare. But an initial difficulty in the way of any pro test by neutrals in this matter is that there is no binding limit of territorial waters in International law. It is true that more na tions have accepted the three-mile limit than any other, that it was declared by the Behring Fisheries Arbitration Commission to be the "ordinary limit," and that it was adopted in the North Sea Fisheries Con vention of 1883, in the Suez Canal Treaty of 1888, and by the fishery treaty of 1839 be tween Great Britain and France, as well as by their legislations. Official recognition of it, however, does not go further back than 1792, when the United States adopted it as being the extreme range of cannon, and it is not admitted by Norway, which claims four miles, or Spain, which claims six miles, and Russia, Germany, Austria, Italy and Denmark have refused to be bound by it and regard four miles as the minimum. An important Projet, framed by Sir Thomas Barclay and accepted sub stantially by the Institute and the Inter national Law Association in 1894 and 1895 respectively, proposed as the limit of terri torial waters a distance of six miles from low water-mark, but allowed it to be ex tended to a distance corresponding to modern cannon range for purposes of neu trality by a notification from the neutral "riverian" Power to that effect; and in 1896 the Netherlands Government suggested to the other Powers the desirability of fixing such limits by International convention. Though other powers were not disinclined to the proposal, the British Government de clared itself unfavorable, and it came to no result.

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OF the position of belligerent ships of war which have taken refuge in neutral ports, the Low Journal (London) says: If a belligerent ship which has taken ref uge from the enemy in a neutral port were allowed to remain there an indefinite time, waiting to emerge when a favorable oppor tunity arose, the neutral Power would ob viously be favoring the belligerent, and in some cases allowing him to use the port as a base of operations. As regards the repair ing of a damaged ship, it may be conceded that such repairs should be allowed to be done in a neutral port as are absolutely nec essary to make her seaworthy; but to allow repairs to be done for the purpose of making her efficient as a fighting machine is very much the same as allowing a new warship to be built for the belligerent. Obviously, the tendency of International law is to interpret the obligations of neutral Powers in the mat ter of not sheltering or repairing ships of war more strictly than in former times. The capture of the Rcchitclni in Chifu Harbor is prima facie undoubtedly a violation of Chin ese neutrality. Even though, as the Japan ese assert, the Russians have systematically violated Chinese neutrality, this act of theirs would not be justified unless the Russian ship was herself violating Chinese neutrality, and China was unable or unwilling to carry out her duties as a neutral. If the Japanese Government cannot show conclusively that this was the case, the proper course will be to return the ship to the custody of the Chin ese authorities. A MEMBER of a recent grand jury in St. Louis thus describes "Mr. Folk in the Grand Jury Room," in The Law Register: The question arises, How does Mr. Folk do it? That is what we jurymen studied over often. In the first place, he is not over burdened with details, having a strong staff. He has time for quiet thinking—the average American professional business man's char acteristic lack. In his examination of a wit ness, Mr. Folk is direct and informal. You might think it a justice of the peace case, in