Suchergebnisse

When one state takes the place of another and undertakes a permanent exercise of its sovereign territorial rights or powers, there is said to be a succession of states. This succession may be called universal in case of total absorption, whether through voluntary agreement, forcible annexation or subjugation, the division of a state into several international persons, or the union of several states into a single international person. Universal succession may also be said to exist where a state is broken up and divided among several previously existing states, as in the case of the division of Poland between Kussia, Prussia, and Austria.

The First Hague Conference had as its main object a consideration of a " possible reduction of the excessive armaments which weigh upon all nations," or, at least, a discussion of the possibility of " putting an end to the progressive development of the present armaments." The conference early realized that even a limitation of the increase of military and naval expenditure was impracticable at that time, and devoted its chief energies to the secondary purpose for which it was called, viz., to discuss and devise " the most effectual means of insuring to all peoples the benefits of a real and durable peace."

The Japanese protest of October 23, 1906, against the action of the San Francisco board of education, based on a California statute requiring all children of Mongolian descent to attend the school set apart for orientals, is one of the most puzzling incidents in our recent diplomatic history. It was sufficiently perplexing to the friends and admirers of Japan to learn that her government had created an international issue out of such a trivial matter as the segregation of less than one hundred Japanese pupils in the oriental school of San Francisco. But some of the friends and supporters of the administration were still more surprised to hear that the federal government admitted that the treaty of 1894 with Japan had been violated by this action of the San Francisco board of education, and apparently believed that it had jurisdiction in the premises.It is true that Secretary Metcalfe's report, which was published on December 19, 1906, also informed us of a considerable number of assaults on Japanese subjects by "hoodlums and roughs," and of the breaking of windows in Japanese restaurants in San Francisco. These attacks, although subsequent to the earthquake, occurred at a time of great public disorder during which there appears to have been a carnival of crime when the police were powerless to protect life and property; but they seem to have been directed against the Japanese from motives of race prejudice, and not for the purpose of robbery.

Among the subjects scheduled for
discussion at the third Pan-American conference,
which met at Rio de Janeiro during July and
August, 1906, was a resolution that the second
peace conference at the Hague be requested
to


consider whether and, if at all, to what
extent, the use of force for the collection of
public debts is admissible.