Right of intervention or interference. the rebellion, was captured, flying the American flag, by a Spanish warship. She was taken to Santiago de Cuba, a number of her officers, crew, and other persons on board (including Americans, Englishmen, and Cubans) were court-martialled, condemned to death as pirates and executed. The charge of piracy was groundless, and the execution of the prisoners unjustifiable. Spain afterwards paid compensation to the United States and to Great Britain. On the other hand, the seizure of the vessel (which was handed over to the United States) appears to have been regarded as justified on the ground of self-defence (h). Similarly, by reason of the necessity of self-preservation, the Japanese forces invaded Korea and Manchuria at the outbreak of the RussoJapanese war (1904). In the Great War (1914) the German Government also appealed to necessity to justify the invasion of Belgium in anticipation of the threatened attack by France. But the facts and documents so far available by no means support the German contention (i). The right of every independent State to increase its national dominions, wealth, population, and power, by all innocent and lawful means such as the pacific acquisition of new territory, the discovery and settlement of new countries, the extension of its navigation and fisheries, the improvement of its revenues, arts, agriculture, and commerce, the increase of its military and naval force--is an incontrovertible right of sovereignty, generally recognised by the usage and opinion of nations. It can be limited in its exercise only by the equal correspondent rights of other States, growing out of the same primeval right of self-preservation. Where the exercise of this right, by any of these means, directly affects the security of others--as where it immediately interferes with the actual exercise of the sovereign rights of other Statesthere is no difficulty in assigning its precise limits. But where it merely involves a supposed contingent danger to the safety of others, arising out of the undue aggrandisement of a particular State, or the disturbance of what has been called the balance of power, questions of the greatest difficulty arise, which belong rather to the science of politics than of public law. The occasions on which the right of forcible interference has been exercised in order to prevent the undue aggrandisement of a (h) Cf. Parl. Papers (1874), vol. Ixxvi.; Moore, Digest, vol. ii. pp. 895 seq., 967 seq., 980 seq.; Cobbett, Cases, vol. i. pp. 165 seq. (i) Cf. Phillipson, International Law and the Great War (1915), chap. ii. particular State, by such innocent and lawful means as those above mentioned, are comparatively few, and cannot be justified in any case, except in that where an excessive augmentation of its military and naval forces may give just ground of alarm to its neighbours. The internal development of the resources of a country, or its acquisition of colonies and dependencies at a distance from Europe, has never been considered a just motive for such interference. It seems to be felt with respect to the latter, that distant colonies and dependencies generally weaken, and always render more vulnerable the metropolitan State. And with respect to the former, although the wealth and population of a country are the most effectual means by which its power can be augmented, such an augmentation is too gradual to excite alarm. To which it must be added that the injustice and mischief of admitting that nations have a right to use force for the express purpose of retarding the civilization and diminishing the prosperity of their inoffensive neighbours, are too revolting to allow such a right to be inserted in the international code. Interferences, therefore, to preserve the balance of power, have been generally confined to prevent a sovereign, already powerful, from incorporating conquered provinces into his territory, or increasing his dominions by marriage or inheritance, or exercising a dictatorial influence over the councils and conduct of other independent States (k). vention. Sir W. Harcourt says of intervention: "It is a high and sum- Legal aspect mary procedure which may sometimes snatch a remedy beyond of interthe reach of law. Nevertheless it must be admitted that in the case of intervention, as in that of revolution, its essence is illegality, and its justification is its success. Of all things at once the most unjustifiable and the most impolitic is an unsuccessful intervention" (1). Chateaubriand, in a speech in the French Chamber on the Spanish war of 1823, asserted that "no Government has a right to interfere in the affairs of another Government, except in the case where the security and immediate interests of the first Government are compromised" (m). It seems impossible to lay down any distinct rules with regard to intervention. We may say, however, that as sovereign States are independent and equal from the point of view of international law, and are (k) Senior, Edinb. Rev. No. 156, Art. 1, p. 329. (1) Letters of Historicus, p. 41. (m) See Halleck, International Law (ed. Sir G. S. Baker, 1908), vol. i. pp. 104, 105; Alison, Hist. of Europe, ch. 12, § 41; Moniteur, 15th Feb. Equilibrium of forces. Earlier wars. therefore entitled to work out their development in their own way, a fundamental principle that follows as a corollary is that of noninterference in the affairs of other sovereigns; that is to say, in the absence of a specific right conferred by convention or necessarily arising from the dominant principle of self-preservation. But having regard to international practice, as well as to theoretical principles, we must admit that--not to mention earlier periods -during the nineteenth century there were numerous instances of forcible intervention on other grounds than those just mentioned, for example, in the interests of humanity, or with a view to safeguarding the balance of power (though this object may be more or less connected with the principle of self-preservation). As has already been observed, the subject belongs to politics rather than to public law. It cannot be distinctly stated what combination of circumstances menaces the security of any State, or tends to disturb the balance of power, and what does not. Statesmen must be guided by the knowledge they possess of the intentions of other countries, and by what they deem necessary for the security of their own, and in the present condition of Europe there seems little probability of any rules regarding intervention being attended to, even if they could be satisfactorily drawn up (n). Each member of the great society of nations being entirely independent of every other, and living in what has been called a state of nature in respect to others, acknowledging no common sovereign, arbiter, or judge; the law which prevails between nations being deficient in those external sanctions by which the laws of civil society are enforced among individuals; and the performance of the duties of international law being compelled by moral sanctions only, by fear on the part of nations of provoking general hostility, and incurring its probable evils in case they should violate this law; an apprehension of the possible consequences of the undue aggrandisement of any one nation upon the independence and the safety of others, has induced the States of modern Europe to observe, with systematic vigilance, every material disturbance in the equilibrium of their respective forces. This preventive policy has been the pretext of the most bloody and destructive wars waged in modern times, some of which have certainly originated in well-founded apprehensions of peril to the independence of weaker States, but the greater part have been founded upon insufficient reasons, disguising the real motives by which princes and cabinets have been influenced. Wherever the (n) See Calvo, vol. i. bk. iii. L spirit of encroachment has really threatened the general security, it has commonly broken out in such overt acts as not only plainly indicated the ambitious purpose, but also furnished substantive grounds in themselves sufficient to justify a resort to arms by other nations. Such were the grounds of the confederacies created, and the wars undertaken to check the aggrandisement of Spain and the house of Austria, under Charles V. and his successors;an object finally accomplished by the treaty of Westphalia, which so long constituted the written public law of Europe. The long and violent struggle between the religious parties engendered by the Reformation in Germany, spread throughout Europe, and became closely connected with political interests and ambition. The great Catholic and Protestant Powers mutually protected the adherents of their own faith in the bosom of rival States. The repeated interference of Austria and Spain in favour of the Catholic faction in France, Germany, and England, and of the Protestant Powers to protect their persecuted brethren in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, gave a peculiar colouring to the political transactions of the age. This was still more heightened by the conduct of Catholic France under the ministry of Cardinal Richelieu, in sustaining, by a singular refinement of policy, the Protestant princes and people of Germany against the house of Austria, while she was persecuting with unrelenting severity her own subjects of the reformed faith. The balance of power adjusted by the peace of Westphalia was once more disturbed by the ambition of Louis XIV., which compelled the Protestant States of Europe to unite with the house of Austria against the encroachments of France herself, and induced the allies to patronise the English Revolution of 1688, whilst the French monarch interfered to support the pretensions of the Stuarts. These great transactions furnished numerous examples of interference by the European States in the affairs of each other, where the interest and security of the interfering Powers were supposed to be seriously affected by the domestic transactions of other nations, which can hardly be referred to any fixed and definite principle of international law, or furnish a general rule fit to be observed in other apparently analogous cases (o). The same remarks will apply to the more recent, but not less important events growing out of the French Revolution. They furnish a strong admonition against attempting to reduce to a rule, and to incorporate into the code of nations, a principle so (0) Wheaton, Hist. Law of Nations, Pt. I. §§ 2, 3, pp. 80-88. Wars of the evolution. French Alliance of European Powers. indefinite and so peculiarly liable to abuse, in its practical application. The successive coalitions formed by the great European monarchies against France subsequent to her first revolution of 1789, were avowedly designed to check the progress of her revolutionary principles and the extension of her military power. Such was the principle of intervention in the internal affairs of France, avowed by the Allied Courts, and by the publicists who sustained their cause. France, on her side, relying on the independence of nations, contended for non-intervention as a right. The efforts of these coalitions ultimately resulted in the formation the five great of an alliance, intended to be permanent, between the four great Powers of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Great Britain, to which France subsequently acceded, at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1818, constituting a sort of superintending authority in these Powers over the international affairs of Europe, the precise extent and objects of which were never very accurately defined. As interpreted by those of the contracting Powers, who were also the original parties to the compact called the Holy Alliance, this union was intended to form a perpetual system of intervention among the European States, adapted to prevent any such change in the internal forms of their respective governments, as might endanger the existence of the monarchical institutions which had been reestablished under the legitimate dynasties of their respective reigning houses. This general right of interference was sometimes defined so as to be applicable to every case of popular revolution, where the change in the form of government did not proceed from the voluntary concession of the reigning sovereign, or was not confirmed by his sanction, given under such circumstances as to remove all doubt of his having freely consented. At other times, it was extended to every revolutionary movement pronounced by these Powers to endanger, in its consequences, immediate or remote, the social order of Europe, or the particular safety of neighbouring States. Congress of Troppau and of Laybach. The events which followed the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle prove the inefficacy of all the attempts that have been made to establish a general and invariable principle on the subject of intervention. It is, in fact, impossible to lay down an absolute rule on this subject; and every rule that wants that quality must necessarily be vague, and subject to the abuses to which human passions will give rise, in its practical application. The measures adopted by Austria, Russia, and Prussia, at the Congress of Troppau and Laybach, in respect to the Neapolitan Revolution of 1820, were founded upon principles adapted to give |