divisible fund, would immediately and justly forfeit the confidence. of the public.

IV. Expense of obtaining new business. It is to be feared that in recent times life assurance has been in too many cases conducted upon a system which leads to excessive expenditure. A portion of these enhanced charges are patent to the eyes of all in the establishments, advertisements, and publications, by which the operations of many offices are now conducted, and a still larger portion I apprehend might be found in the commissions and other considerations by which business is influenced in quarters where there is no ostensible connexion with the office. An office which spends forty thousand pounds in obtaining and managing a business no greater in magnitude than that which another obtains and manages for twenty thousand must in the long run fall immensely short of its more economical neighbour in the benefits which it can afford to dispense among those who share its profits. But the difference will not consist alone in the saving of twenty thousand a year. A business gained by the influence of mere expenditure is sure to be inferior in quality, and will in the end disclose its forced character by the large part of it surrendered and discontinued in a course of years, alike to the injury of the office and the disappointment of the policy-holders. Under this process an election will be constantly operating against the office in the maintenance of those risks which are most likely to terminate against it, and thus the average rate of mortality in the office is apt to be depressed by a residuum of inferior lives which are sure in this way to be left upon its books. Whether an observation of this kind fairly applies to the business of any office whatever in this country or not, enough is known to make it in the highest degree desirable that every institution which expects to retain the confidence of the public, should frankly disclose the amount of its whole expenses in obtaining and managing its business.

V. General Suggestion. I have no faith in Government inspection as applied to the authoritative supervision of life assurance institutions, farther than that some public functionary might perhaps have cognizance of the ascertainment and verification of the facts regarding each office. The great counteractive of the dangers at which I have glanced in this paper, as well as of others which might be specified, is, that the whole subject of life assurance should be brought more distinctly than it has yet been within the knowledge and inspection of the public.

Publication is, I believe, the grand remedy which would operate both in the way of prevention and cure. Let every office which claims the confidence of the community, publish annually, or at suitable intervals, in authenticated form, the following information:

First. A balance sheet containing a list of investments, more or less specific, showing the nature of the security, and the average interest realized.

Second. A statement explicitly announcing the table of mortality and rate of interest used in the valuations, and explaining in what

manner the present value of the future premiums has been computed.

Third. A statement showing the amount of expenses of management and of obtaining new business.

Fourth. The actual results of the mortality experienced among the lives assured; and

Fifth. A plain and unambiguous statement of the manner in which the profit or estimated surplus is disposed of, showing the proportions allocated to shareholders, or for the maintenance of a guarantee fund, and to the different classes of policy-holders.

Were particulars like these in every instance frankly and plainly communicated to the world, the true position and relative merits of life assurance institutions would become certainly known. The defective and misleading announcements, too often boastfully displayed, would cease to exercise any influence upon the public mind, and all soundly conducted offices would find that their permanent prosperity would be greatly promoted, and would, under the approving judgment of the public, rest securely on good investments, economical management, sound valuations, equitable distributions of surplus, and truthful and candid explanation of results.

INTERNATIONAL LAW.

On the Capture during War of Private Property at Sea. By D. P. CHALMERS, Advocate, Edinburgh.

THE

HE subject of this paper is a certain change which has been proposed in the law of nations regarding maritime warfare. Up to this time the property afloat belonging to the individual members of belligerent states has been liable to the enemy's capture and confiscation. Every just war being assumed to be the prosecution by force of rights unjustly withheld, it has been supposed that all methods of war were allowable which tended to compel the wrongdoer to yield equitable terms of peace,-this criterion, however, being qualified by another, viz., that a given method did not produce injury and suffering disproportioned to its effect in weakening the enemy's resources. Judged by these tests, seaborne commerce has been considered a fair object against which the operations of war might be directed. For in the first place, it is one of the most effective means whereby the State is itself enriched, through the wealth thence derived by its citizens: hence to leave it unmolested would be in effect to abstain from acting against the State as regards one of its main nerves for war. But secondly, whatever weakens the maritime commerce of a belligerent in reality weakens his military power at sea. Merchant ships are not specifically different from ships of war. A

great proportion of them are capable, with less or more of adaptation, of being fitted for various important war services, and almost all may be used as transports. It was sound policy, therefore, for a belligerent, who had the opportunity, to fit out cruisers of such force as to render the resistance of merchantmen impossible, and, quietly capturing them in detail, make it impossible for the enemy to send them forth filled with armed men to act in offensive operations. And as of the ships, so of the sailors. Every man, or ship's crew, taken prisoner in a merchant-vessel, was as effectual a subtraction from the enemy's war-strength as if slaughtered in battle.

It has been proposed, in quarters entitled to the utmost consideration, that a new rule should be introduced. The subject came before a Select Committee of the House of Commons which sat in 1860 to inquire into the state of merchant shipping. This Committee reported as their opinion "that in the progress of civilisation and in the cause of humanity, the time has arrived when all private property, not contraband of war, should be exempted from capture at sea." Petitions likewise in favour of the change have been presented to Parliament from important mercantile bodies; and in a debate in the House of Commons which took place upon a resolution brought forward by the member for Liverpool, it was urged upon Government by a portion of the speakers that they should advise the Crown to take steps, in concert with other maritime powers, for having the principle formally established in the law of nations.

With great deference to those who have expressed a contrary opinion, it appears to me by no means certain that humanity would gain, were it possible to make war exclusively the affair of Governments, taking off its pressure entirely from the general body of their subjects, and it may be gravely doubted whether the step now proposed to be taken in that direction would be other than a retrograde movement. A fertile field of inquiry here lies open; but as my limits forbid me to enter on more than a single branch of this subject, and as the supporters in this country of the change have based their arguments mainly on its advantages, or rather necessity, as they consider, to British interests as affected by the privileges of neutral nations promised in the Paris Declaration of 1856, I shall confine my remarks to this part of the question.

Everyone knows that the representatives of the powers who met at Paris in that year, to settle the terms of peace between Russia, on the one hand, and Great Britain, France, Turkey, and Sardinia on the other, thought it right to issue a "Solemn Declaration," having no connexion with the subject matter of the treaty, but designed, professedly, to put certain questions of International Law on a more satisfactory footing than that on which they then stood. As the articles of the declaration are expressed very briefly, I may transcribe the whole.

1. Privateering is, and remains, abolished.

2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war.

3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under enemy's flag.

4. Blockades in order to be binding must be effective; that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy.

The powers represented at the congress were England, France, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, and the Porte. It was agreed that the declaration should apply to whatever other powers should subsequently signify their accession to it, and in point of fact every state of importance, excepting America, has now done so. Waiving, then, whatever objection it is possible may lie against it, as in excess of the powers with which the representatives were entrusted, or grounded on the want of ratification by their governments-points which cannot now be determined-the declaration may be assumed for the present to fix the maritime law of the world, with the very important exception, always, of America. In the third and fourth articles the declaration does nothing more than sanction rules of law which were already well ascertained, but as to which the practice of nations has not been uniform. The first article introduces a new principle; and, it may be remarked that, in abolishing privateering, it abolishes the only real distinction which previously had existed between the law of maritime and of land warfare, declaring that henceforth, the former, like the latter, shall be carried on exclusively by forces in the direct service of the State.

It is the second article, however, which concerns us in this discussion. The declaration that "the neutral flag covers enemy's goods is a reversal of what had been the common law of nations. It was in accordance with the recognised maxims of belligerent right that the goods of an enemy on the high seas might be captured and confiscated, whether the vessel in which they were carried belonged also to the enemy, or was the property of a neutral. This is the rule of the oldest International Code, the Consolato del Mare; is the doctrine of Grotius, Bynkershoek, Heineccius, and other great continental jurists; has always been contended for in England, and was elaborately reasoned by Mansfield and Stowell; and lastly, is supported by the opinions of the greatest American authorities, of whom I need only mention the names of President Jefferson, Mr. Justice Story, and Mr. Chancellor Kent. Conventional agreements, however, between nations, modifying the common law, have not been unfrequent. was the Dutch who first made the stipulation, in a treaty with Spain, that enemy's goods should be safe on board neutral ships. This was in the year 1650, when much of the carrying trade of Europe was in their hands, and the privilege was of great importance, in allowing them to prosecute their business without having it interrupted by the frequent wars of the Spaniards with their other employers. From this time to 1780 the stipulation that "free ships shall make free goods is embodied in a very considerable number of treaties contracted between particular states, and on particular occasions. These treaties are to all intents private compacts, and no attempt is

It

made in the period to which I at present refer, to promulgate the maxim as a general rule of international law, or as universally binding. There are repeated instances of a state stipulating contrary provisions in treaties concluded at the same time with different powers; and in many cases the principle "free ships, free goods" is balanced with a counter provision, that "enemy's ships shall make enemy's goods," ie., that the goods of a neutral on board an enemy's ship shall thereby acquire hostile character, and be liable to confiscation. In 1780, an exposition of universal international right was put forward by Russia, the second article of which declared "That the property of the subjects of belligerent powers should be free on board neutral ships, excepting goods that were contraband." Russia was joined by France, Spain, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden. This coalition, known familiarly under the name of the First Armed Neutrality, there can be no doubt, was directed against England, then at war with her North American colonies and with Spain and France. The most noticeable circumstance concerning it is that, notwithstanding their high sounding pretensions, the States who were parties to the coalition did not see fit to adhere to the doctrines they professed longer than they were induced by the immediate object they had in view, and everyone of them returned to the old practice as soon as they became themselves belligerents, which happened, as regards all of them, in the course of very few years. In 1800, the Emperor Paul, on a difference with England, revived the principles of the first armed neutrality. Russia on this occasion was joined only by Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia. The second coalition endured even shorter time than the first. In 1801, the Emperor Alexander, who had succeeded Paul, concluded a treaty with England renouncing the freedom of enemy's goods, which was acceded to by Sweden and Denmark. It is needless to dwell upon the treaties made during the period intervening between the first and second armed neutralities, or subsequently. In some of them, the freedom of enemy's goods was stipulated, but nowhere maintained as a general principle; and as no renewal of these took place in the treaty of Vienna of 1815, which adjusted at that time all European interests, they must be held, according to the soundest doctrine, to have fallen, and the matter to have reverted to the common law of nations. In 1810, Great Britain in renewing her treaty with Portugal, expressly released herself from a stipulation in favour of enemy's goods which had existed in an old treaty (one of the very few in which she had ever assented to such a provision), and from that time to 1854 she has not been in any way engaged to the principle. It may be noticed that subsequently to 1815, the United States have, at various times, concluded treaties with most of the European States, excepting England, containing the stipulation "free ships free goods," but expressly providing that the protection should apply only to the goods of those enemies whose own govern ments acknowledged the same principle. In 1854, on the breaking out of the Russian war, it was necessary that England and France,