tilities to be suspended." The government of the United States was unable to concur in this view, and took the ground that, as it had been expressly provided in the protocol that notice should be given of the suspension of hostilities, the suspension was to be considered as having taken effect "at the date of the receipt of the notice," which had been immediately given.' While this seems to be a natural construction of the article-otherwise the clause providing for the immediate notification is redundant-the Spanish government was not inclined to accept it; and in the first conference of the Peace Commission at Paris requested the immediate restoration of the status quo at the time of the signing of the protocol. To this request the American commissioners, who had been specifically instructed that the city and suburbs of Manila were held "by conquest as well as by virtue of the protocol," refused to yield."

Where the treaty fixes a future date for the cessation of hostilities in remote places, it is generally agreed that hostilities must cease upon the receipt of official notice, although the time allowed has not expired. Obviously the notification in order to be binding on the officer must be duly authenticated and attested to by his own govern

ment.

II. INTERPRETATION

(a) International Tribunals

Article XVI of the convention for the pacific settlement of international disputes, signed at The Hague,

'For. Rel. 1898, pp. 813, 814, 830.

'Sen. Doc. 148, p. 6, 56th Cong. 2nd sess; Sen. Doc. 62, pp. 13, 15, 21, 55th Cong. 3rd sess.

Wheaton, sec. 548; Halleck, vol. i, p. 319. 'See Case of the Swineherd. Hall, p. 582.

July 29, 1899, and to which the principal powers of the world, with the exception of the Central and South American states, are signatory parties, reads: "In questions of a legal nature, and especially in the interpretation or application of international conventions, arbitration is recognized by the signatory powers as the most effective, and at the same time the most equitable, means of settling disputes which diplomacy has failed to settle." In Article X of the original Russian project, arbitration was to be made obligatory in cases of disagreement in the interpretation or application of treaties and conventions concerning postal and telegraphic service, international railways, protection of submarine telegraphic cables, rules for preventing collisions on the high seas, protection of literary, artistic and industrial property, monetary affairs, weights and measures, sanitary affairs, veterinary precautions, measures against the phylloxera, inheritances, extradition, mutual judicial assistance, navigation of international rivers and interoceanic canals, and boundary conventions so far as they concerned purely technical and not political questions. Obligatory arbitration in any dispute that might arise out of treaties relative to monetary affairs and the navigation of international rivers and interoceanic canals, was, not without reason, objected to in the Comité d'Examen, by the American member (Mr. Holls), and on the motion of the German member (Dr. Zorn), who opposed the general principle of obligatory arbitration, the article was stricken out in the committee. In the plan of a tribunal of arbitration adopted in April, 1890, by the First International Conference of American States, but which

1 Conférence internationale de la Paix, pt. 4, p. 202. "Holls, Peace Conference at The Hague, p. 227.

failed to receive the necessary ratification, arbitration in controversies with regard to the validity, construction and enforcement of treaties, was made obligatory. The Second Conference which met at Mexico in 1901-2, by the protocol adopted January 15 (nineteen republics represented), recognized "as a part of public international American law the principles set forth" in the three conventions, relative to the rules of war, signed at The Hague, July 29, 1899; and authorized the governments of the United States and Mexico to negotiate with the other powers signatory to the convention for the pacific settlement of international disputes, for the adherence thereto of the American nations so requesting.'

In Article XXIII of the postal-union convention signed at Vienna July 4, 1891, which article is renewed in the convention signed at Washington June 15, 1897, it is provided that disagreements between two or more parties to the union, as to the interpretation of the convention, shall be decided by arbitration in a manner prescribed in the article. A resolution introduced in the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Parliament in November, 1875, and unanimously agreed to, requested the government to insert in all future treaties where possible a clause providing that difficulties arising in their execution or interpretation should be referred to arbitration. Since that date a large proportion of the treaties entered into by Italy have contained such a provision. A resolution of the Institute of International Law at Zurich in 1877 contained a recommendation of similar pur

1 Sen. Doc. 330, pp. 11, 36, 40, 57th Cong. 1st sess.

28 Stat. at L., 1093. 30 Stat. at L., 1645.

'See for list, Report of M. le Chevalier Descamps to the Hague Conference, Annex E.

port.' Norway, not being allowed separate diplomatic representation, has been solicitous in this respect, and in the three commercial treaties applying to her separately, concluded March 22, 1894, with Switzerland, June 11, 1895, with Belgium, and December 31, 1895, with Portugal, such provisions were inserted. In the unratified treaty between the United States and Denmark of January 24, 1902, for the cession of the Danish West Indies, it was provided that differences arising in its execution or interpretation should be submitted to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.3 Likewise treaties of arbitration have been concluded providing for general compulsory arbitration in this respect. Such a treaty was signed January 11, 1902, between Spain and Mexico. In the treaties of arbitration concluded by Great Britain October 14, 1903, with France, February 1, 1904, with Italy, and February 27, 1904, with Spain, it is agreed that differences that may arise out of the interpretation of treaties between the two contracting parties which can not be settled by diplomacy shall be referred to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, provided, nevertheless, that they do not affect the vital interests, the independence, or the honor of the two contracting states, and do not concern the interests of third parties.

Although no branch of international relations could be more safely entrusted, without compromising the sovereignty of the state, to an international court of appeal,

'A similar recommendation was made by the Interparliamentary Union for international arbitration that met at Vienna in 1903.

'Arts. VII, XX, XVI. Brit. and For. State Papers, vol. lxxxvi, p. 1026; vol. lxxxvii, pp. 537, 840.

3 Art. VI.

4 For. Rel. of the U. S. 1902, p. 813.

than the interpretation of treaties, which constitute the the positive law between nations, there does not exist at present any standing tribunal before which the parties to a disputed interpretation must lay, except by special agreement, their contentions for adjudication.

(b) Judicial and Political Questions

Where the treaty operates infraterritorially, as in the United States, or becomes by enactment a part of the municipal law, doubts respecting its meaning in cases between individuals are questions for the courts. The external relations of the treaty between government and government are primarily political questions.' Likewise in those states where the act to carry into effect, and not the treaty itself, comes before the court the interpretation is by the political branch, and the law in question may be considered as expressing the interpretation placed upon the treaty by the legislature. With respect to political questions, although they may affect individual rights, the courts of the United States have expressed a willingness to follow the decision of the political departments, the President and Congress. In reply to arguments made before the Supreme Court in 1853, that the King of Spain had not power according to the Spanish constitution to annul by the treaty of 1819 grants made in Florida, Chief Justice Taney, speaking for the Court, said, "But these are political questions, and not judicial. They belong exclusively to the political department of the government *** it would be impossible for the executive department of the government to conduct our foreign relations with any advantage to the country, and fulfil the duties which the

'See Hamilton's Works (Lodge ed.), vol. iv, p. 139; Foster vs. Neilson, 2 Pet., 253.