given by the charter, and some kind of authority to settle external affairs is implied in the provision that the Colonial Secretary may dissent from the dealings of the company with foreign powers. Yet all this vast fabric of supremacy rests upon the foundation of a royal grant which is subject to be revoked at any time if the advisers of the British Crown are dissatisfied with the conduct of the company, and is exercised from day to day at the discretion of a royal officer who has power to disallow the company's acts and insist upon obedience to his requirements. And behind all stands the reserved supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, which could by legislation make any alteration it pleased in the constitution and position of the company, or even abolish it altogether. Clearly then it is no independent authority in the eye of British law, but a subordinate body controlled by the appropriate departments of the supreme government. Like Janus of old, it has two faces. On that which looks towards the native tribes all the lineaments and attributes of sovereignty are majestically outlined. On that which is turned towards the United Kingdom is written subordination and submission. We may extend the simile and make it apply to all the other chartered companies of which we spoke. They are sovereign in relation to the barbarous or semi-barbarous inhabitants of the districts in which they bear sway. They are subject as regards the governments of their own states. History supplements abstract reasoning, and by showing how England's East India Company ruled a mighty empire, and yet was subject to British legislation and was at last swept away altogether by the action of Queen and Parliament, confirms in a striking manner this view of the position in International Law of its imitators and successors. They are altogether abnormal; and many complications are likely in future to arise from the peculiar conditions of their existence.

1 By Order in Council issued November 25, 1898, the armed forces of the Company were placed under the control of Her Majesty's High Commissioner at Capetown. A Resident Commissioner was appointed; and the office of Secretary for Native Affairs was created to guard the rights of the natives.

§ 55.

We have now reached the fifth and last class of subjects of International Law. Individuals may come under its rules as owners of property or because of acts Individuals. done by them in time of war as private persons

and not as agents of the state, or on account of circumstances in their lives which bring them into direct relations with some authority whose force is derived from the law of nations and not from Municipal Law. We exclude from our classification the authorized agents of the belligerents. Their acts are state acts, for which their country is responsible; and any controversies that may arise about them are controversies between two nations. But the rules of belligerent capture are applied to private individuals, and Prize Courts discuss and settle the changes in proprietary right made in consequence of hostile seizure at sea. Private persons may, while war is going on, perform on their own responsibility acts which will bring them into direct contact with rules of International Law. They may, for instance, attempt to run a blockade, and suffer forfeiture of ship and cargo; or they may fire upon the enemy from the windows of their houses, and be executed as unauthorized combatants. Again, in time of peace a man may become a pirate, and thus render himself liable to be hanged after trial and condemnation by a duly constituted court of any country whose cruisers can seize him. It acts because International Law gives to every state the right to capture pirates, even though they are not its own subjects. These cases are exceptional. As a rule, the law of nations takes no cognizance of individuals as such. States, being but aggregations of human beings, must carry on their mu tual intercourse by human agency: but it is the state, and not its agent, that comes under the law. Sometimes, however, one state is empowered to deal directly with citizens. of another in their individual capacity; and when this occurs they are, for the time and as far as the question extends, subjects of International Law.

§ 56.

A large number of the states which belong to what is aptly called the family of nations, and acknowledge certain rules as binding in their mutual intercourse, subjects of Inter- have been in this position from time immemorial. Modern International Law grew up

Admission of new

national Law.

among them.

There never was a time when they were outside its pale. Their influence helped to mould it. Many of them existed before the great majority of its rules came into being. There was no need for them to be formally received among its subjects. Anything like a ceremony of initiation would have been wholly inapplicable to their case. The older states of Europe are in this condition. They form as it were the nucleus of international society. But with regard to other states there was a necessity for formal admission into it, either because a new body politic was formed where no separate international entity existed before, or because a political society already in existence so altered its character as to be capable of abiding by rules which had previously been inapplicable to it.

States hitherto

ous.

§ 57.

We shall find on examination that the admission of new subjects within the pale of International Law takes place under three different sets of circumstances. accounted barbar- The first occurs when a state hitherto accounted barbarous is received into the family of nations, as was Turkey by the Treaty of Paris of 1856, the seventh article of which declared "the Sublime Porte admitted to participate in the advantages of the public law and system of Europe." With more or less of formality, Persia, China, and Japan have been accorded a similar recognition. As we have already seen, the possession of a fixed territory and a certain size and importance are essential to member

1 1 Holland, European Concert in the Eastern Question, p. 245.

ship in the family of nations. A further requisite is that the state to be admitted shall be to some extent civilized after the European model; but the exact amount of civilization required cannot be defined beforehand. Each case must be judged on its own merits by the powers who deal with it; and it is clear that they would not admit a state into their society if they did not deem it sufficiently like to themselves in organization and ideas to be able to observe the rules they have laid down for their mutual intercourse.1

§ 58.

States formed by

hitherto uncivilized countries.

Another case of admission is exemplified when a new body politic formed by civilized men in districts hitherto left to nature or to savage tribes is recognized as an independent state. The Transvaal, or South civilized men in African Republic, affords an excellent example. In 1836 a number of Dutch farmers left Cape Colony and went into the wilds of South Africa. Some settled in the district now known as the Colony of Natal, and set up a rudimentary form of civilized government. On the annexation of this territory to the British Empire they again moved, and, joining another section of the original emigrants who had made their home in the interior, established themselves in the upland country beyond the river Vaal. In 1852 they were dealt with by Great Britain as an independent state, and other powers followed her example.2 Subsequent events led to the extinction of the republic, but not before it had played an important part in the recent rapid development of South Africa. Another example is to be found in the creation and recognition of the Congo Free State, which was founded by the International Association of the Congo, a philanthropic society under the direction of the King of the Belgians, who for some years provided from his private re

1 Sometimes they are sadly deceived, as in China, where, in the summer of 1900, the envoys of the powers were murderously attacked at Pekin, and the Chinese government resorted to falsehood and forgery to escape the conse quences of its misdeeds. Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, Ch. XL

2

sources the funds necessary to carry on its operations. These were directed towards the formation of civilized settlements in the vast area of the Congo basin, for the purpose of combating the slave-trade and opening up the country to legiti mate and peaceful commerce. Treaties were made between the Association and numerous native tribes, whereby it acquired an enormous territory, estimated to consist of 900,000 square miles with a population of 17,000,000 souls. Its boundaries received clear definition in a series of conventions and declarations negotiated in 1884 and 1885 between the Association and the various states represented at the West African Conference of Berlin. They recognized it as an independent state and acknowledged its flag as that of a friendly power. By the Final Act of the Conference its territory was included in the zone within which all nations were to enjoy complete freedom of trade, and the signatory powers bound themselves to respect its neutrality in the event of a war as long as it fulfils the duties which neutrality requires. The new state thus created possessed few sources of revenue; and had it not been for the large sums expended by the King of the Belgians, its sovereign, upon the work of its development, it would not have been able to maintain its stations and go forward with its task of opening up the country. The burden was partially lifted from his shoulders in 1890, when the parties to the Final Act of the West African Conference empowered the Congo Free State to levy certain moderate duties on imports for revenue purposes. Belgium also gave it financial assistance, receiving in return a right of annexation after a period of ten years. The King had previously bequeathed by will to the Belgian state his rights as sovereign of the Congo Free State, and though its future is doubtful, within a few years it may become, subject to its existing international obligations, a dependency of Belgium.1 A third instance of the

1 British State Papers, Africa, No. 4 (1885); Statesman's Year Book for 1894, pp. 439-440.