allow them to escape unpunished. There seems little reason for a course of action dictated either by an exaggerated notion of a citizen's privileges or by a profound distrust of the administration of justice in foreign lands. A case can always be watched, and, in the unlikely event of its being conducted with manifest unfairness, remonstrances can be made. If civilized states have sufficient confidence in one another to enter into Extradition Treaties at all, they ought to be willing to surrender their own subjects when occasions arise.

CHAPTER IV.

RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS CONNECTED WITH EQUALITY.

§ 134.

Meaning and utility of the princinecessary in the

ple of Equality.

statement of it.

FROM the time of Grotius to the present day publicists have declared that all independent states are equal in the eye of International Law. The equality they speak of is not an equality of power and influence, but of legal rights. They hold that the smallest and weakest of independent political communities has exactly the same position before the law of nations as the strongest and most extensive empire. Doubtless this theory was for a long time productive of great good. It gave weak states an admitted principle to appeal to in the case of aggression from stronger neighbors; and though it did not often prevent high-handed wrong, it placed the brand of illegality upon transactions of the order familiar to readers of the fable of the wolf and the lamb. And the result was that when helpless states were wantonly attacked, the aggressor invented some plausible excuse. Either the weaklings had been themselves guilty of a wrong which must be punished, or the Balance of Power was seriously disturbed on account of their nefarious conduct, or they were meditating outrages upon neighbors who were therefore reluctantly compelled to attack them in self-defence. Thus a certain amount of lip-service was done to the principles of morality; and respect for International Law was kept up in the midst of transactions which were in reality lawless.

But a careful examination of recent international history seems to reveal a series of important facts, which can have no other meaning than that the doctrine of Equality is becoming obsolete and must be superseded by the doctrine that a Primacy with regard to some important matters is vested in the foremost powers of the civilized world. Europe is working round again to the old notion of a common superior, not indeed a Pope or an Emperor, but a Committee, a body of representatives of her leading states. During the greater part of the present century Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia and Russia have exercised by concerted action a kind of superintendence over some departments of European affairs, and in 1867 Italy was invited to join them. These six states are called the Great Powers, and the agreement of the Great Powers is called the Concert of Europe, a phrase which seems to indicate that what is done by their concerted action is done on behalf of the whole of Europe and is binding upon other states, even though they have not been formally consulted with regard to it. On the American continent a similar primacy, though hardly of so pronounced a character, seems to be vested in the United States. We do not assert that the hegemony of the Great Powers in the Old World and the United States in the New is an undoubted principle of public law. All we contend for is that events are tending in that direction and, unless the tendency is speedily reversed, the Grotian doctrine of Equality will soon be a thing of the past. A brief historical review will be sufficient to indicate the grounds on which this proposition is based.

The Primacy of the Great Powers in Europe.

$ 135.

The establishment of the Kingdom of Greece in 1832 was preceded by long and intricate negotiations between the Great Powers. The armed intervention which forced Turkey to give up the territory of the new Kingdom was the work of England, France

and Russia, who guaranteed the integrity of the Greek state; but Austria and Prussia were kept informed of all that was done, and, when in 1863 fresh arrangements became necessary owing to the deposition of King Otho, the three guaranteeing states obtained in a more definite manner the co-operation of the other two. The annexation of the Ionian Islands to Greece was agreed upon by all the Great Powers; and at the time of the cession, the neutralization of Corfu and Paxo was declared by the Courts of Great Britain, France and Russia "with the assent of the Courts of Austria and Prussia."1 In any emergencies which have since arisen all the Great Powers have been consulted as a matter of course, and the Concert of Europe has undertaken the settlement of difficulties. From 1876 to 1881 the Greek claims for an increase of territory were placed before various Conferences and Congresses; and Turkey was at last induced by the pressure of the Powers to cede a portion of what had been demanded. And when in 1886 Greece showed a disposition to attack the Ottoman Empire in order to obtain the remainder, the Great Powers again interfered, and after some negotiation all of them, with the exception of France, joined in establishing a Pacific Blockade 2 of the Greek coast, till the little Kingdom yielded and disbanded its forces.3

The Kingdom of Belgium also owes its origin to the Great Powers, who were all formally concerned in the question from the first. They were called in originally by the King of Holland to mediate between him and his Belgian subjects, who had revolted in 1830. But they soon let it be understood that they intended to deal with the matter as seemed best to them, and in spite of his remonstrances and armed opposition they erected Belgium into a separate Kingdom and guaranteed the perpetual neutrality of its territory. In the course of the negotiations serious disagreements arose among 1 Holland, The European Concert in the Eastern Question, p. 51. 2 See § 159. 3 In 1897 the Great Powers again intervened to prevent the annexation of Crete to Greece, and to dictate the terms of peace between Greece and Turkey.

the powers, and it was not till 1839 that the question was settled. While it lasted an English fleet blockaded the Dutch ports and a French army besieged and took Antwerp.1 When the Concert of Europe was established it was by no means disposed to allow its decrees to be set at naught.

The erection of Egypt into a semi-sovereign state under the suzerainty of the Porte was, as we have seen,2 the work of the Great Powers. France was unable to concur in the arrangements embodied in the Quadruple Treaty of 1840; but her voice has been none the less potent on that account in subsequent negotiations. She has played a leading part in the regulation of Egyptian affairs and is most anxious to terminate the present British occupation of the country. It is quite certain that the existing arrangement is temporary, though it is uncertain what will take its place. When it comes to an end, the arrangements which are to succeed it should be submitted to the European Concert. The final settlement must, in the words of Mr. Gladstone, "be arrived at with the intervention and under the authority of Europe, and never could be adequately founded upon the simple conclusion of any single power of Europe."3

One of the main objects of the Crimean War, and the only one which has been permanently attained, was to take the power of settling the destinies of the subject Christian populations of Turkey out of the hands of Russia alone, and vest it in the Concert of Europe. Though Austria and Prussia had not been belligerents they were admitted to the Conferences which drew up the Treaty of Paris in 1856. This was done because they were Great Powers, and it was felt that no settlement of the Eastern Question could be satisfactory if they were excluded from it. Acting on the same principle Great Britain insisted that Russia should not

1 Wheaton, History of the Law of Nations, p. 550.

2 See §§ 49, 50.

8 Speech in the House of Commons, Aug. 10, 1882; see Hansard, 3d Series, Vol. CCLXXIII., 1391.