Rights and Duties of Neutrals. But this present is not an unfit place for offering some general remarks upon the control exercised by the State over strangers, whether domiciled and commorant (habitans), or merely travellers through the country (étrangers qui passent) (n).

It is a received maxim of International Law, that the Government of a State may prohibit the entrance of strangers into the country, and may therefore regulate the conditions under which they shall be allowed to remain in it, or may require and compel their departure from it. According to the Law of England, local allegiance is due from an alien or stranger born, so long as he continues within the protection and dominion of the Crown; and it ceases the instant he transfers himself from this kingdom to another. The allegiance and the protection of the stranger, therefore, are both confined, in point of time, to the duration of the residence; and in point of locality, to the dominion of the British Empire (o). During periods of revolutionary disturbances both on the Continent and within this kingdom, it has been customary to pass Acts of Parliament authorizing certain high officers of the State to order the departure of aliens from the realm within a specified time, and their imprisonment in case of refusal. These Acts have generally been limited in their duration: the operation of the last was confined to the period of one year (p).

(n) Vattel, 1. i. c. xix. s. 213, 1. ii. c. viii. passim. (0) Calvin's case, 7 Coke's Reports, 6 a.

Stephen's Blackstone, vol. ii. book iv. pt. i. c. 2.

1 Hale's Pleas of the Crown, 60.

(p) "This power," as Mr. Canning observed, "had undoubtedly been exercised by the Crown, sometimes with, sometimes without, the consent of Parliament" (5 Canning's Speeches, p. 255). The 33 Geo. III. c. 4, A.D. 1793, was the first Alien Act passed by the Parliament of this kingdom, and was followed up by Lord Grenville's note, dismissing Monsieur Chauvelin.

(Translation.)

"Whitehall, Jan. 24, 1793. "I am charged to notify to you, Sir, that the character with which you have been invested at this Court, and the functions of which have been

so long suspended, being now entirely terminated by the fatal death of his late Most Christian Majesty, you have no more any public character here.

"The King can no longer, after such an event, permit your residence here. His Majesty has thought fit to order that you should retire from this kingdom within the term of eight days; and I herewith transmit to you a copy of the order which his Majesty, in his Privy Council, has given to this effect.

"I send you a passport for yourself and your suite; and I shall not fail to take all the other necessary steps, in order that you may return to France with all the attentions which are due to the character of Minister Plenipotentiary from his Most Christian Majesty, which you have exercised at this Court.

"I have the honour to be, &c.

(State Papers on the War, p. 245.)

“GRENVILLE."

This Act was followed up by the under-mentioned statutes, all now repealed:

The last Statute was passed on June 9, 1848, 11 & 12 Vict. c. 20, "An Act to authorize for one Year and to the end of the then next Session of Parliament the Removal of Aliens from the Realm."

Horner's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 522. Speech on the Alien Bill, 1816.

CHAPTER XI.

RIGHT TO A FREE DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL
RESOURCES BY COMMERCE.

CCXXI. THIS Right (a) is little more than a consequence from what has been already stated with respect to the free navigation of the ocean, and the exceptions which International Law has sanctioned in the case of particular portions of the ocean. The general law as to the perfect liberty of commerce incident to every nation is forcibly and truly stated by Grotius (b): "Quominus gens quæque cum quavis gente "seposita commercium colat, impediendi nemini jus est: id "enim permitti interest societatis humanæ ; nec cuiquam "damno id est: nam etiam si cui lucrum speratum, sed non "debitum, decedat, id damni vice reputari non debet."

The extravagant pretensions of Spain and Portugal to exclusive commerce with the East and West Indies, and their practical abandonment, have been discussed in a former chapter. It is, however, perfectly competent to any nation to make what regulations it pleases with respect to its own commerce, to admit every nation equally to it, to exclude nations from it, to admit some under favourable and others

(a) "Commercium cum Turcis vetitum dicere lege omnes videntur. Et mihi tamen non libet facile discedere a regula certissima Juris Gentium, quod constituit commercia, nec distinguit aliquid de Gentibus." -Albericus Gent. Advoc. Hispan. cc. 25, 26.

Grotius, 1. ii. c. 2, 5.

Martens, 1. iv. c. iii. s. 139.

Klüber, s. 69.

Massé, Le Droit commercial dans ses rapports avec de Droit les Gens et le Droit civil, t. i. 1. ii. tit. i. ch. i. (ed. 1874), p. 95.

(b) L. ii. c. 2, 13, 5.

under unfavourable conditions, unless, indeed, such original liberty be curtailed by the express provisions of a Treaty. A nation has the same power of restricting commerce with regard to its distant provinces and colonies. Every colony almost has, at one time or other, been confined to commercial intercourse with its mother country, or to some great privileged company of that country. Every page of the history of colonial dependencies shows with what rigour this monopoly has been exerted by the mother country in time of peace, and with what jealousy the forced relaxation of such monopoly in time of war by one belligerent in favour of neutrals, has been regarded by the other belligerent. England has steadily denied to the neutral the right of carrying on that commerce with the colonies of the belligerent in time of war from which it had been excluded in time of peace. But this subject belongs to another part of this work.

"The colonial monopoly, that fruitful source of wars (Mr. Wheaton writes in 1845), "has nearly ceased; and with "it the question as to the right of neutrals to enjoy in war "a commerce prohibited in time of peace” (c).

The whole status of Consuls is considered in a later portion of this work (d).

(c) Hist. pp. 759–60.

(d) Et vide ante, ch. ii. §. xiii.

CHAPTER XII.

RIGHT OF ACQUISITION.

CCXXII. IN the discussion upon the Rights of Territorial Inviolability, the fact of rightful Possession has been assumed (a). "Totum autem jus" (the Roman lawyers say) "consistit aut in adquirendo, aut in conservando, aut in "minuendo. Aut enim hoc agitur, quemadmodum quid "cujusque fiat; aut quemadmodum quis rem vel jus suum "conservet; aut quomodo alienet aut amittat" (b).

Before, however, we enter upon the consideration of the manner in which Acquisitions are made by a State, it seems expedient to offer some observations upon the nature of1. Possession (possessio); and of

2. Property (proprietas), or Dominion (dominium). The Roman Law (c) is the repository from which all

(a) "Les territoires de l'Europe ont été appropriés à chaque nation à la suite de révolutions successives, dans lesquelles la force, puis la marche lente et logique des événements, ont eu plus d'influence que le droit. L'invasion des peuples du nord dans le monde romain; plus tard, la réunion des différentes petites puissances de la féodalité en Etats plus forts et moins nombreux, sont, dans ce travail, les deux faits principaux. Pendant ce long espace de temps, et depuis, des transformations diverses, des traités nombreux, se sont succédés, et tout finit par constituer le territoire des Etats actuels.

"Il serait inutile de discuter sur la légitimité des premières occupations qui se rencontrent à l'origine de ces Etats."-Des Moyens d'acquérir le Domaine international, par Eugène Ortolan, s. Ixi. p. 42.

(b) Dig. 1. i. t. iii. 41.

(c) Warnkönig, Instit. Juris Rom. Privati, 1. ii. c. i. t. iii., c. ii. t. ii. Puchta, Pandekten, Kap. 2.

Mackeldey, Besond. Theil. Kap. 1, t. i.

Savigny, Besitzrecht.

Mühlenbrück, Doctrina Pandect. 1. ii. c. 2.