It appears from the foregoing account that a new series of precedents have been created in this war in favor of the viev that belligerent armed vessels seeking refuge in neutral ports ought to be dismantled and disarmed, and their crews paroled or de tained until the end of the war, as in the analogous case of defeated or fugitive troops seeking refuge from defeat or pur suit on neutral territory in warfare on land. But the force of these precedents is per haps somewhat weakened by the fact that the majority of the Russian vessels cited sought refuge in Chinese territory under the shadow of a Government which was incapa ble of guaranteeing a perfect neutrality or of perfectly fulfilling its neutral obligations. It may also be suspected that the Russian Government was under the circumstances not wholly averse to disarmament under which keep him in health fit him to perform his duties as a combatant. But, such as it is, it has to be observed." The rule seems to be a sort of compromise between the obligations of human ity and comity on the one hand and of neutrality on the other. Ci. Taylor, p. 690.
proper guarantees of protection from at tack, such as could be furnished by the Gov ernments of Germany and the United States."1 In any case the force and validity of the twenty-four hour rule has been greatly strengthened during this war, and the con duct of the Powers in refusing or strictly limiting supplies of coal to Russian war ships of the Baltic Fleet shows that modern Governments are becoming more fully alive to their neutral duties in this respect. It looks as though a new chapter in the his tory of International Law was being written, and it would seem that Govern ments are beginning to take a very differ ent view of their neutral obligations than they did in the days when Confederate cruis ers, built or purchased in foreign ports, were able to begin and complete their er rands of destruction without ever having as much as touched at a Confederate port. 'In the case of the Lena, at any rate, this ac tion was taken at the express request of the Rus sian commander.
THE END.
PARIS LETTER. THERE seems to me to be some necessity to point out that many—lawyers and laymen—often refer to the French Civil Code as if it were practically entirely the work of Napoleon Bonaparte, somewhat in the same way that Sunday School scholars refer to the Law of Moses. And only the other day Prince Napoleon wrote to M. Albert Vandal, of the Academic Française, a letter in connection with the Centenary of the Code, in which that impression referred to is rather encouraged than otherwise. Napoleon should have his due but no more in this matter. Not to mention the study of Justinian
NOVEMBER, 1904. which became so popular in France toward the end of the eleventh century and which is supposed to have laid the foundations of the work connected with the Civil Code to come after, it is safe to say that the reign of Louis XI. saw the first serious begin nings when that monarch desired Commines to edit all the French Customs in a "beauti ful volume." Time went on and then Louis XIV. was reminded by the sagacious Col bert that the unification of legislation would be a work worthy of the grandeur of his name, and the Code Louts became the pride and the dream of the French lawyers of that brilliant epoch. In the reign of
