of diplomatic negotiations. It has sometimes been held that contracts running between a state and the subject or subjects of another state may, if violated, become grounds of just intervention, and that the subjects had a right to demand action by their sovereign. This ground is manifestly insufficient, though each state is judge as to what measures it will take in a given case. International law does not guarantee the payment of loans which are merely personal transactions between the individual and the state in its corporate capacity, nor can the public law of one state be expected to hold in another. Interference on such grounds is a matter of expediency and not a matter of right.

(e) Conclusion. In general, the best authorities seem to agree that at the present time, owing to the ease with which other measures may be taken, intervention can be admitted only on the single ground of self-preservation. The numerous cases of intervention upon varied grounds amply show that any other ground would be open to wide abuse, as has often been the case. For general purposes of remedy for injury such measures as retorsion, reprisals, embargo, and pacific blockade may be taken when a state deems it expedient and is willing to assume the responsibility for such measures.1 While intervention is, for the sake of preserving the existence of a state, a justifiable measure, it is not a right, but merely a means sometimes justifiable to preserve a right, the right of a state to exist, which alone supersedes the obligation of non-intervention.

1 See ch. XV.

CHAPTER X

EQUALITY

43. EQUALITY IN GENERAL.

44. INEQUALITIES AMONG STATES.
(a) Court precedence.

(b) Matters of ceremonial.

(c) Weight of influence in affairs.

§ 43. Equality in General

The equality of states was an early premise of international law. This equality, however wide may have been its meaning, as interpreted by some of the earlier writers, can now be held to extend only to legal status. A state from its very being as a sovereign unity must be legally equal to any other state. Only those states members of the international circle are regarded as possessed of this equality from the point of view of international law. So far as legal attributes as states extend, the states members of the international circle are equal, yet that their weight in the world of affairs may vary by virtue of other circumstances must be admitted. The legal status of states is the same; regardless of the form of state organization, whether monarchy or republic; regardless of origin, whether by division or union of former states or even if created in a region hitherto outside the jurisdiction of any state; regard

less of area, population, wealth, influence, etc.; regardless of relations to other states provided sovereignty is not impaired; regardless of any change in the form of state organization, as from a republic to a monarchy or even of a temporary lapse in the exercise of sovereignty.

§ 44. Inequalities among States

While all states, members of the family of states, are equal in international law so far as their legal attributes are concerned, they may be very unequal in other respects.

(a) One of the oldest marks of inequality is that of court precedence, which for many years was a fertile source of difficulty, and was at last settled to the extent of ranking by title of diplomatic representative by the Congress of Vienna in 1815.1

(b) Inequalities in matters of ceremonial of various kinds have not disappeared. These may be based upon tradition or conventional grounds, and frequently give rise to difficulties if disregarded. These ceremonials may be (1) political as between the sovereigns in their official personal capacity as emperors, kings, dukes, etc., (2) court and diplomatic in interstate negotiations, (3) treaty as in alternat or in the alphabetical signing of treaties, (4) maritime ceremonial in salutes, etc.

(c) Inequalities in weight of influence in affairs.

(1) In Europe there is distinctly recognized in political practice an inequality of the states, and they are classed as "the great powers," "the minor powers," 1 See § 70 (b).

and sometimes such states as those of the Balkan peninsula are referred to as "the little powers or "thirdrate states." These divisions are based merely upon political grounds, and states may pass from one division to another as their wealth, area, or influence increases or decreases.

At the present time "the great powers," generally mentioned officially upon the continent in the alphabetical order of their names in French, i.e. Allemagne, Angleterre, Autriche, etc., are Germany, Great Britain, Austria, France, Italy, and Russia. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Spain was numbered with "the great powers." Sweden was so ranked in the seventeenth century. Italy was counted with "the great powers" after 1870. The union of several powers upon certain lines of policy, since early in the nineteenth century, has been called "the concert of Europe," "the primacy of the great powers," etc. It was not the purpose of these great powers to establish new rules of international law; but as enunciated by the five powers, Nov. 15, 1818, it was "their invariable resolution never to depart, either among themselves, or in their relations with other states, from the strictest observation of the principles of the Rights of Nations."1

That the practice of the Great Powers has not been strictly in accord with these expressed principles, a glance will show. The immediate action of Austria, Russia, and Prussia in the Congress of Troppau, 1820, carried the principle of interference in the internal affairs of states so far that Great Britain found itself compelled to dissent. This continuance of the policy of

11 Hertslet, 574.

the Holy Alliance in putting down movements in favor of popular liberty, wherever arising, led to gross violations of international rights. Nor did Great Britain become a party to the acts of the Congress of Verona in 1822, which led to intervention to prevent changes in the internal organization of Spain in 1823. The struggles of the Greeks for independence at about this time were naturally regarded by those upholding the ideas of the Holy Alliance as dangerous to those states desiring to prevent revolutionary movements. But the narrow policy of the Alliance was gradually losing support. The opposition of Great Britain and the death of Alexander of Russia in 1825 hastened its speedy fall. Meantime the idea of a collective authority in the Great Powers had been maintained. This began to be exercised in behalf of the Greeks in 1826, and has throughout the nineteenth century been repeatedly exercised in the same behalf, sometimes unselfishly, often from motives of mixed character. During the latter half of the nineteenth century the Great Powers have continually kept a close surveillance over Grecian affairs, and enforced their judgments in regard to Greece by force (destruction of Turkish fleet at Navarino, 1827); by providing form of government and naming monarch (1829 and later); by fixing and changing boundaries (1829 and often); by pacific blockade (1827, 1850, 1886, 1897); by regulating financial affairs, and by other means of varying degree of force.1

The Eastern question has particularly occupied the Concert, and the disposition of the territory once within

1 For detailed summary, 1826-1881, see Holland, "European Concert in the Eastern Question," Ch. II.