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tions of present conditions in each Asiatic country, except Siberia, and is presented in readable form. Apparently it is practically free from errors or omissions. It is illustrated by seven convenient maps and has a selected bibliography of twenty-nine pages arranged according to the various chapter headings. It also has a convenient subject index of twenty-seven pages. JAMES MORTon Callahan.

Gedanken über Staatsethos im Internationalen Verkehr. By Herbert Kraus. Berlin: Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft für Politik und Geschichte m. b. H., 1925. pp. 166. Index. Mk. 20.

In this characteristically thorough, analytical, yet very realistic little work, Dr. Kraus approaches a subject which is at once fundamental in its importance, wide in its appeal, and baffling in its complexity and unsatisfactory lack of unity and solidity. The result is that when Dr. Kraus has finished with the subject one feels that a solution is not very much nearer than it is after far less capable moralists and litterateurs have poured out their feelings and their cynicisms on the same topic.

The author holds that it is indispensable to work out ethical standards for application to state life and state action, and to insist upon an application of such ethical standards in international relations. The standards must not differ greatly from the ethical standards applicable to relations among individuals. He regards the current ethics of international relations as at once anachronistic and "ragged." Ethical principle is largely subordinated to non-rational reactions as an influence on state activity, despite some lipservice rendered to the former; right is less influential than cleverness, social justice less influential than national greed. Students and critics of the ethical value of any given national action in international relations vary in their judgments as a result of their personal views and the national interests involved, with the result that the aggregate of contemporary ethical judgments of state action is various, fickle, and capricious in quality and content. Between stark nationalism, on the one hand, and universal altruism, on the other, the ethicists fluctuate wildly in their attempts to set up standards of state action. Meanwhile the nations play upon a "double register" in their dealings with one another, acting according to feelings of ruthless nationalism while professing some allegiance to standards of ethics which obtain among individuals. Dr. Kraus is, however, as optimistic as he is critical of the present situation and determined that it shall be remedied. He sees going on in the world a deepening and a spread of knowledge and scientific thought which is affecting individual and national thought regarding the ethics of state action. The result must be the firm establishment of a true inter-state ethic in place of the narrow ethic of the individual state, an inter-state ethic of communal coexistence of the nations, of internationalism in its most precise meaning. PITMAN B. POTTER.

The American Task in Persia. of the Finances of Persia. xiv, 322. Index.

By A. C. Millspaugh, Administrator-General
New York: The Century Co., 1925. pp.

"In the shadows of Persepolis and Susa," says Dr. Millspaugh, with a sense of proportion not too common among experts engaged in large undertakings, "three years, the period of our association with the Persian problem, seem a mere tick of the tireless clock of history." And yet, in that brief moment, as will appear from his modest personal narrative, Dr. Millspaugh and his associates, working as common-sense administrators rather than as financial experts in the narrow sense, have introduced into the chaotic financial situation of Persia a stabilizing and educative influence which may contribute as much as the firm hand of the new Shah toward the revivification of the empire of Cyrus and Xerxes.

The Administrator-General takes pains to avoid giving the impression that the Persians are inherently incapable of progress or of efficient administration. Progress, he observes, had its roots deep in the sentiments of the people and, before the arrival of the American financial mission, had already borne fruit in much sound legislation which had prepared the ground for the mission. Moreover, he believes, there were, before his arrival, numerous Persians who not only knew what reform measures were needed but who also had "the requisite energy, courage, and will to undertake the task." Attempts to reform the financial administration had in fact been made by several Persian ministers of finance. Their failure was due to the political power of those whose interest it was to continue the system of sinecure appointments and loose accounting. It was the realization of the necessity for taking the financial administration out of domestic politics that led to the employment of Mr. Morgan Shuster, whose brief service as Financial Adviser in 1912 gave him "a niche in Persia's Hall of Fame," and it was with a realization of this necessity, accentuated by the serious property losses incident to the invasions of Persian territory during the war, that the Persians, no longer menaced by the Power which had demanded the dismissal of Shuster, again sought the aid of an American mission in 1922.

Dr. Millspaugh's mission, composed of twelve men, was welcomed by the most influential Persians in 1922 and was given as much as nine months to live by even the most cynical foreign observers. It was less than nine months old when it had to meet, with silence, the first concerted attack from the elements affected by the reforms. A year later there was a more serious attack in the course of which the mission was charged, in and out of the Parliament, with "various high crimes and misdemeanors," including illegal and oppressive collection of taxes; delays in the conduct of correspondence; failure of adaptation to the mentality of the Persian people; maintenance of too many high-salaried officials; lack of expert knowledge; and general incompetence.

The criticisms of the mission had reached their height and had given seri

ous concern to Dr. Millspaugh and his associates at the moment when the tragic murder of Vice-Consul Imbrie occurred. Dr. Millspaugh makes no acknowledgment of any improvement of the position of his mission as an indirect result of the amicable settlement of the question of reparation for the murder, relieving the tension which followed the insistence of the United States upon the responsibility of the Persian Government in the matter. any rate, the clouds which hung over the financial experts were at length dissipated, and with the indispensable support of Reza Khan (now Reza Shah), who had become Prime Minister in October, 1923, the mission found itself, before the end of its third year, firmly established in its control of the Persian financial administration and with authority to engage additional experts from America.

In his concluding chapter Dr. Millspaugh expresses his views as to "the international measures which are most likely to assist the American Mission and Persian progressives in their task." Adequate assurances, he believes, have been given by foreign governments regarding "the territorial integrity of Persia and equality of economic opportunity in the country." Persia herself accepts the principle of the open door and "desires to make the principle a practical reality by eliminating the discredited ideas of 'spheres of influence' and 'special interests,"" and by establishing conditions of genuine competition for foreign capital. In return for guarantees of equality of opportunity, he urges, all foreign governments which now possess or assert a right to special economic privileges against the will of Persia should be willing to accord her "every fiscal and economic right possessed by other sovereign nations." There is, in his opinion, little hope for a solution of the problem of Persia in the casual and inefficient practices of "politicoeconomic penetration, the tutelage of the weak by the strong, forced exploitation, and the agglomerating of empires."

EDGAR TURLINGTON.

Diario de un Escribiente de Legacion. Por Joaquin Moreno. Official de las Legaciones de México en París y Roma (1833-1836). Mexico: Publicaciones de la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1925. pp. xx, 289. Director Genaro Estrada of the series known as Archivo Histórico Diplomático Mexicano, of which this publication is Number 16, has supplied an interesting fourteen-page introduction to this chatty diary of a young diplomatic secretary, written during the four-year period nearly a century ago while the latter was attached to the Mexican Mission to France and the Vatican, of which Lorenzo de Zavala was chief. Estrada says apologetically that the diary is not one of transcendental tone, nor a writing of great political value nor, strictly speaking, of a diplomatic value which would justify its inclusion in the series; but he adds it shows an intimate contact with a diplomatic mission and is full of such observations, data, and meditations as are

customary in reports of an international character, and is a vivid reminder of the incipient, convulsed Mexico of the Santa Annas, Bustamantes, and Zavalas. The diary, as would be expected, is occupied with comments sometimes on the daily routine of the chancellery and news of the unimportant doings of friends at home, and at other times on important political occurrences in the homeland or at the capitals to which the mission was accredited, or in the other European countries.

WILLIAM R. MANNING.

American and British Claims Arbitration under the Special Agreement of August 18, 1910. Report of Fred K. Nielsen. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1926. pp. 638.

The American and British Claims Arbitration Tribunal has completed its work, and Mr. Fred K. Nielsen, Agent and Counsel for the United States, has issued his report. The scope of the arbitration included questions of law and fact incidental to fishing and shipping claims, property rights, collection of customs duties, naval and military operations and government contracts.

The arrangement of the report renders it a welcome addition to that relatively small number of authorities which comprise the working library of those engaged in international litigation. The report is arranged as follows: (1) the text of the Special Claims Convention of August 18, 1910; (2) the Rules of Procedure adopted by the Tribunal; (3) list of claims scheduled for arbitration under the convention, showing the disposition of each claim; (4) summary of cases argued, tabulating complete statistical data with respect to amounts claimed, and the awards made; (5) opinions of the Tribunal and summaries of arguments of counsel.

There are several other features of the report which distinguish it from similar publications and render it peculiarly useful. The index, embracing eight pages, is carefully prepared and facilitates the use of the report as a source book. The orderly presentation of the separate claims affords a clear-cut picture of the origin and evolution of the various issues. Each case carries a catchword headnote indicating the international law points considered by the Tribunal. Following each headnote, there is a short statement of facts setting out the history of the claim, a synopsis of the arguments of counsel for the two governments, and the Award of the Tribunal. In several of the more important cases the American Agent has elaborated the foregoing sequence by the inclusion of briefs. The briefs in the State Succession claims, the Robert E. Brown and the Hawaiian claims, contain valuable collections of authorities in a field marked by few arbitral decisions. These briefs add to the value and completeness of the report and evidence the thorough manner in which the work of the American Agency was conducted.

The Cayuga Indian claim was the largest and the last of the claims heard and decided by the Tribunal. This venerable claim, dating back to 1789, comprising an exceptionally long and complicated record, raised questions with which the Tribunal wrestled in an Award covering some twenty-five pages. The American Agent in his report of this case subjects the award to a searching analysis which throws grave doubt on certain of the grounds on which the Tribunal rested its award.

This report is a significant contribution to international arbitral law and procedure, both as a record of continuing Anglo-American arbitral relations, and as a collection of precedents by which to chart international action. HOWARD S. LEROY.

La Communauté Internationale. Extrait du Recueil des Cours, 1925,
Académie de Droit International. Par Jesse S. Reeves. Paris: Librairie
Hachette, 1925. pp.
pp. iii-90.

This is a reprint from the official collection (reviewed in this number of the JOURNAL) of the lectures delivered by Professor Reeves before the Academy of International Law at its second session in 1924. It is, in the main, a study of the nature of international society. In the language of the author, it represents an attempt to present the facts of international life and to discover the fundamental bases or major premises upon which may be established a valid hypothesis in the domain of international law. After an introductory survey of the common factors (territory, population, government, and a juridical régime) of international life and the differences (race, language, history, economic situation, industrial organization, institutions, ideas) which characterize it, the author considers in turn the theories of Grotius relative to international society, and those of his "naturalistic" successors, Pufendorf, Wolff, Vattel and others. Grotius, he says, was an internationalist. His conception of international society was a society based on the consent of all, within the limitation that this consent must not be in contradiction with the law of nature. But his conception was not that of a system resting upon a theory of the fundamental rights of states. To him, states as members of international society were not unities: society was only the consequence of the sociability of man; an international society composed of states which represented unities was, in his eyes, only secondary and derivative. The world as he conceived it was neither a world of mutual dependence nor one of independence. The author approves the dictum of Grotius that peace and not war is the normal condition of mankind, but he qualifies it with the reservation that it must be a peace of life and movement and not of fixity or stagnation. Of Grotius's successors, Pufendorf and Vattel exerted the most powerful influence. The former recognized a society of states governed by natural law, which states possessed fundamental 1 1 Supra, p. 819.

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