said to be the protection of the lives and property of all foreigners in Mexico. The American Commissioners have not only pressed for the consideration of this matter, but for a number of others, such as the establishment of an international claims commission and the restoration of health conditions in Mexico, where typhus is making headway and death by starvation is common. These questions, as well as many others, have already been considered by the commission informally and are to be given formal consideration when the commission reassembles, which it will as soon as the agreement as to withdrawal and border control, which was officially made of preferential concern, has been approved by both governments.

The present agreement may, therefore, be regarded as the first step only in the work of the commission. If this, however, is not found to be agreeable to the two governments, the commission will, by force of the understanding had between the two State departments, come to an end.1o

A delay of several months ensued before any definite statement was made concerning General Carranza's attitude toward the protocol. Statements emanating from the Mexican Commissioners during this interval indicated that, while Carranza did not object to the terms of the protocol, he objected to the reservation by the American Commissioners, not included in the protocol, but mentioned in the statement accompanying its signature, of the right of the United States to pursue bandits across the border. It was also intimated that General Carranza felt that his approval of the protocol would place him in a position of having appeared to sanction the presence of foreign troops in Mexico. Several sessions of the commission were held late in December to consider General Carranza's suggestions for a modification of the protocol. The American Commissioners declined to entertain such suggestions, however, and, on January 2, 1917, it was officially stated that Carranza had refused to ratify the protocol. The final meeting of the commission was held on January 15, 1917, when it was agreed that further discussion of international questions was impracticable and the commission adjourned.

Pursuant to recommendations of the American Commissioners, however, the President decided to withdraw the American troops, to hold General Carranza's Government responsible for American interests in the territory affected, and to maintain a patrol along the American border, which would be sent into Mexico if necessary to protect American territory and rights. Accordingly on January 28, 1917, orders were issued by the War Department for the withdrawal of the troops and within a week they had returned to American soil.

10 New York Times, November 25, 1916.

At the same time the President decided to send a diplomatic representative to Mexico to take up through diplomatic channels the questions which the joint commission had been unable to adjust. Mr. Henry P. Fletcher, formerly American Minister to Chile, who had been appointed Ambassador to Mexico on February 25, 1916, and detained in the United States because of the unsatisfactory state of the relations between the two countries, arrived in Mexico on February 17, 1917.

Thus closes the long period of interrupted official intercourse between the United States and Mexico, which started with the refusal of the United States to recognize Huerta after the assassination of Madero, who overthrew Diaz. Many believe that it would have been wiser for the United States to have acted upon the principle that it was not concerned as to the manner in which a Mexican president came into power and promptly to have recognized Huerta. Those who hold this view believe that General Huerta could have pacified the country within a few months and thus saved Mexico many years of bloodshed and the United States much concern and no small expenditure of money. They also assert that the failure to recognize Huerta really amounted to intervention in the internal affairs of the country and that the United States is therefore more or less morally responsible for what took place afterwards.

The purpose of this comment is to continue from previous numbers the narrative of events in Mexico, and space will not permit a consideration of the legal or political aspects of the incidents which have been related in the course of the narrative. It is the belief of the writer, however, that there is no basis for the allegation that the American action with regard to Mexico amounted to intervention. He believes further that the American policy accords with the best American practices and traditions. Whether its application to recent events in Mexico was wise can only be determined by the future course of events in that country.

GEORGE A. FINCH.

HAVANA SESSION OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

On January 22, 1917, in Havana, the American Institute of International Law began its second session and ended it on January 27th. It was formally invited by the Cuban Government to hold its session in Cuba, and it was the guest of the Cuban Society of International Law.

On the closing day of the session, the Uruguayan Minister to Cuba invited the Institute to hold its next session in the City of Montevideo as the guest of the Republic of Uruguay. This invitation was accepted and the third session of the Institute will accordingly be held in Montevideo in the course of 1918, as the guest of the Uruguayan Government and under the auspices of the Uruguayan Society of International Law. Without entering into details of the purpose and organization of the Institute, as this has been done in previous issues of the JOURNAL, suffice it to say that it is composed of five publicists of each of the twenty-one American republics, recommended in the first instance by the national society of international law of each American republic and elected in the first instance by the charter members, and, after its organization, by the members of the Institute. Its purpose was and is to bring an equal number of publicists of the different American countries together, in order that by an exchange of views and by personal and provisional coöperation principles of justice which should control at least the relations of American countries may be discovered, made known and put into practice.

At the first session, held in Washington in connection with and under the auspices of the Second Pan American Scientific Congress, the Institute adopted on January 6, 1917, its Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Nations, based in every instance upon an adjudged case of the Supreme Court of the United States, thus showing by a concrete example that not only a legal but a judicial basis for a law of nations exists in fact as well as in theory. Without giving the text of this Declaration, which has been printed in a previous number of the JOURNAL,1 or going into further details, particular attention is called to the fact that the Institute's Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Nations is not the product of philosophic speculation, although, if it were, this fact would not deprive it of value; but it is, as previously stated, based in every instance upon solemn judgments of the Supreme Court of the United States, which is not only a prototype of an international court, but is an international court and the only permanent and successful international court which has ever been created. The Institute's Declaration was based upon decisions of this tribunal, in order to show that the fundamental principles of the law of nations are legal, capable of ascertainment, definition, application, and development by a court of justice.

1 January, 1916, (Vol. 10), p. 124.

The Institute adopted a series of recommendations to be known as the Recommendations of Havana, dealing with international organization. These recommendations are of a more speculative nature, for they could not very well be based upon the decisions of the Supreme Court or indeed of any other court, as they deal with the things of the future, not of the present and of the past. Like the Declaration, they have little or no claim to originality, as they aim to give form and shape to a sequence of proposals, which may be said to be in the air. They were unanimously adopted and will appear in the proceedings of the Institute, accompanied by a commentary, as in the case of the Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Nations.

The Institute considered a series of projects, which, however, it did not adopt, and upon which it refrained from an expression of opinion, as, before taking action, it seemed desirable to refer them to each of the twenty-one national societies of the American republics, in order to obtain an expression of their views in advance. These projects relate to the fundamental bases of international law, the fundamental rights of the American Continent, the regulation of neutrality in naval war, the organization of a court of arbitral justice, a union or league of nations for the maintenance of peace, the rights and duties of nations which are derived from the fundamental rights. The texts of these projects will appear as appendices to the summary statement called the Final Act of the Havana session, and, of as present interest to the readers of the JOURNAL, the text of this Act, containing the Recommendations of Havana and the enumeration of the projects and proposals referred to the national societies, is printed in English translation in the Supplement to this JOURNAL, p. 47.

JAMES BROWN SCOTT.

SOCIETY FOR THE PUBLICATION OF GROTIUS

The JOURNAL takes pleasure in publishing the following announce

ment:

The other day a "Society for the publication of Grotius" was formed at The Hague, with the object of preparing a new edition of the works of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), the famous Dutch scholar, renowned alike as lawyer, theologian, philosopher and historian. A commencement will be made by publishing the letters written by and to Grotius. A committee has been appointed, consisting of the following gentlemen: Professor Mr. C. van Vollenhoven, of Leiden, President; Mr. G. J. Fabius, of Rotterdam, Treasurer; Professor Dr. J. Huizinga, of Leiden;

Professor Dr. A. Eekhof, of Leiden; Mr. G. Vissering, of Amsterdam; Dr. D. F. Scheurleer, of The Hague, and Dr. P. C. Molhuysen, of The Hague, Secretary.

It is perhaps too much to say that Grotius was the founder of international law, as he aims, as shown, to construct a system of international law from the works of his predecessors. The fact remains, however, that he performed this great service, and the three books on the law of war and of peace published in 1625 are the first systematic treatises on the law of nations.

It is not a valid criticism that he did not create what he expounded, and he expounded so well what he found at hand, and so much of the treatise is due to the industry, thought and judgment which he brought to the performance of the self-imposed task that he is rightly considered the father, if not the founder, of international law; and, in any event, he is the author of the first systematic treatise on the subject, and through this treatise, and because of its author, jurisprudence found itself endowed with a new branch of law, and the world with a rule of conduct for the nations. In this vast domain the great Dutchman had no master and he still awaits a rival.

But, great as his service to international law is, has been, and will be, which has made him a benefactor of his kind and of nations, he would be sure of grateful remembrance had he never treated the law of nations. By profession a lawyer, and leader of the bar in his own. country, he was a theologian, a poet and a scholar in a day when scholarship meant as great, if not greater, familiarity with Latin and Greek and the literature in those languages than with the language and literature of his own country. He was possessed of the learning of his day and generation to a degree remarkable in any man, and which is almost unbelieveable in a man of affairs. In his boyhood Henry IV pronounced him the miracle of Holland, and today he is its glory as well as its miracle.

It is peculiarly appropriate that Dutch scholars should think of Grotius today and announce an edition of his works, for it was in a time of bloodshed and despair that he himself penned his immortal work on the law of nations. "I saw," he said, "in the whole Christian world a license of fighting at which even barbarians might blush, wars begun on trifling pretexts, and carried on without any reverence for Divine or man-made laws, as if that one declaration of war let loose every crime." Because of this international situation, and because of his belief that