of the final acts, conventions and declarations as signed, and of the principal proposals offered by the delegations of the various powers as well as of other documents laid before the commissions."

The reports may serve to attract attention in the United States to the efforts of certain powers in 1907 to minimize restrictions tending to interfere with belligerent claims. Formal manifestations of intolerance were at times concealed, however, under the cloak of professions of a determination to respect the dictates of humanity. The remarks of Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, of the German delegation, on the codification of rules concerning mines may be cited:

That a belligerent who lays mines assumes a very heavy responsibility toward neutrals and toward peaceful shipping is a point on which we all agree. No one will resort to this instrument of warfare unless for military reasons of an absolutely urgent character. But military acts are not solely governed by stipulations of international law. There are other facts. Conscience, good sense, and the sense of duty imposed by principles of humanity will be the surest guides for the conduct of sailors and will constitute the most effective guarantee against abuses. The officers of the German navy, I loudly proclaim it, will always fulfil, in the strictest fashion, the duties which emanate from the unwritten law of humanity and civilization (p. 692).

In his extended preface the editor has called attention to the instructions given by Secretary Root to the American delegation in 1907, who declared that "among the most valuable services rendered to civilization by the Second Conference will be found the progress made in matters upon which the delegates reach no definite agreement." Events have proven the truth of this assertion. The reports to that Conference, in so far as they illustrate the influence of national policies upon the formulation of desired codes of law, remain of utmost value and are to be reckoned with in any future attempt to effect codification.

Dr. Scott has commented adversely on the situation which permitted the President of the Second Conference, Mr. Nelidow, the first Russian delegate, to regulate its procedure and to propose the Secretary General and certain other officers. In this connection it is said:

The president of a continental assembly believes it to be his duty to run the congress, and he faithfully performs this part of his duty. He is as far removed as the poles from the Anglo-American conception of the chairman, who is merely the presiding officer of the meeting. These matters will no doubt be satisfactorily arranged by the preparatory committee for the Third Conference, in which it is to be hoped that there will be representatives of countries other than the friends of friends.

The chief contribution of the United States to the Second Hague Peace Conference concerned matters pertaining to the pacific settlement of international disputes; and that contribution was not in vain, even though no convention applying the principle of obligatory arbitration or setting in operation the proposed Court of Arbitral Justice was concluded. The reports issued by the Carnegie Endowment offer the means of wide and thorough examination in America of that work, and which would otherwise be necessarily confined to the small group of scholars having access to the official proceedings of the Second Conference (known as La Deuxième Conférence Internationale de la Paix, Actes et Documents). The reports also inspire hope of a more popular interest and concern in what should be the policy of the United States respecting the modification and formulation of the laws of war on land and sea than would otherwise be possible. It is a difficult task to create in any country an enlightened and therefore sound opinion on technical problems of international law, and one really useful to the government burdened with the formulation of a constructive policy. In the United States this difficulty has been serious. The reports to the Hague Conferences offer aid in its solution; for there is now placed within the reach of the American public a simple and direct means of comparing the theories advocated from day to day in various quarters, with the discussions of statesmen reflecting every shade of opinion within less than seven years of the outbreak of the European War. By this accomplishment the Carnegie Endowment and its editor have rendered a distinctly useful service, to which the reviewer acknowledges his own indebtedness.

Tables of signatures, ratifications, adhesions and reservations to the conventions and declarations of the Conferences of 1899 and 1907, are given. An index of persons as well as a general index are appended. The translations of the reports and annexes thereof are the work of Messrs. W. Clayton Carpenter, Henry G. Crocker and George D. Gregory.

CHARLES CHENEY HYDE.

From Isolation to Leadership: A Review of American Foreign Policy. By John Holladay Latané, Ph.D., LL.D. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company. 1918. pp. viii, 215. $1.00.

The central thread of the ten chapters of this small timely volume is the question of participation in world politics-either in protection of American rights and principles or by cooperation in affairs of general interest.

Although the volume evidently is largely a growth from earlier studies in diplomatic relations and from preparation of addresses delivered at various universities or before political and international associations, its present appearance was doubtless influenced by the President's bold announcement of January 22, 1917, proposing that the nations should adopt the Monroe Doctrine as the doctrine of the world and disentangle themselves from secret alliances by the establishment of a concert of powers through a League to Enforce Peace, and also by the astonishing achievement of America in organizing and transporting fighting forces which turned the tide of battle against the vast and long-prepared military organization of the Central Powers led by the military masters of Germany.

It is not a presentation of new materials, but a clear and wellarticulated statement, a progressive and judicial summary and interpretation, of a large mass of facts which the author has digested and assimilated. Seizing main points, the author presents them in continuity of development, avoiding tiresome details, and without footnote references or bibliographic appendix. He adds a convenient index.

Necessarily, as planned, the book omits many incidents which one might expect or wish to find mentioned. It contains no reference to the early applications of American policy against the Barbary pirates, or in connection with the acquisition of Louisiana and Florida, or in the early American relations in the Caribbean and the contiguous territory of Central America and Mexico, or in the opening of relations in China and the Hawaiian Islands.

The writer is accurate in his historical statements, but he has introduced several historical hypotheses (pp. 33, 53, 87, 93-94, 186) which he admits are of little practical value (p. 11).

The book will prove satisfactory and useful to the student of inter

national questions, and is especially adapted to the use of the general reader who does not have the time for a fuller treatise.

Dr. Latané briefly sketches the essential features in the development of the two chief phases of American foreign policy-the traditional policy of political isolation and the Monroe Doctrine, between which he makes a clear distinction which many writers have not made.

Dr. Latané too strongly emphasizes the idea that American maintenance of the doctrine without resort to force has really rested only on the existence of a nicely adjusted European balance of power resulting in the rise of diverting European situations at critical times when the doctrine was threatened by some European power which might have put it to the test of actual war (p. 146).

Referring to American participation at the Algeciras conference as the "most radical departure" from the American traditional policy of isolation, nevertheless, in view of what has since happened, he justifies the secret diplomacy and motives of Roosevelt as a positive factor in preserving the balance of power in Europe and thwarting the relentless attempt of the German Kaiser to humiliate France (p. 76).

He indicates that American diplomacy in the Orient has had a freer hand, illustrated by Perry's Japan expedition, which he regards as a radical departure from the general American isolation policy, and later by the retention of the Philippines not only as a naval base but also to prevent the precipitation of a world war by German seizure of the islands (p. 85).

In a brief review of Anglo-American relations, he suggests the possibility of a closer Anglo-American understanding and cooperation.

The author devotes a chapter to the natural and inevitable imperialistic tendencies appearing in protectorates and receiverships and financial supervision in the Caribbean since 1898, which converted American policy into law (p. 146) and caused Latin American attacks on the Monroe Doctrine on the ground that it has thus been violated. These so-called imperialistic policies, if administered in an unselfish spirit, the author declares are not inconsistent with the recent general war aims defined by Wilson (p. 165).

The traditional policy of isolation from world politics, justified in the early experimental days of American democracy as a quarantine against the fatal disease of militarism, long remained a mere tradition. or popular delusion which restricted America in the face of opportunities for useful service, and bred a complacence of effortless contem

plation which made her indifferent to international responsibilities and as selfish as the predatory powers from which it held her aloof. But, under new conditions resulting in closer neighborhood, and in the complexity of diplomacy resulting from the emergence of Japan as a first class world power, it finally became an impossibility and was dispelled and abandoned under the conditions of the unequal world conflict between aggressive, merciless might and defensive right. The final decision against it, as Dr. Latané observes, was doubtless influenced not only by the immediate German violation of American rights on the seas and German conspiracies and activities within American territory, but also by the well-grounded apprehension of eventual German direct attack upon the United States and by the apparent necessity of the establishment of the peace of the world and the freedom of peoples against an irresponsible military autocracy (p. 186). In making the decision, the President "assumed an unparallelled moral leadership" by clearly formulating the issue to maintain democracy and the principle of the consent of the governed, positively and throughout the world, against the attacks of autocracy. At the peace conference, the author declares, America by her unselfish aims and with her cloistered virtue gone "will be in a position to shape the destinies of the world" (p. 208).

Dr. Latané has performed a useful service by placing in convenient form this interesting narrative of the evolution of the fundamental principles and complicated questions of foreign policy, which should facilitate the study of the subject and furnish to Americans an opportunity to obtain a wider knowledge of reliable facts-a knowledge which is required to reduce the necessity of secret diplomacy in a democracy. His volume deserves to be widely read.

J. M. CALLAHAN.

A World Court in the Light of the United States Supreme Court. By Thomas Willing Balch. Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott. 1918. pp. 165.

In this interesting volume the author has given us not only an instructive review of the part the Supreme Court of the United States has played in settling serious disputes and preventing wars among the States of this Union, but has also presented a thoughtful and lucid