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and Russia's conduct in the affair of the capture of the Malacca was so evidently planned beforehand that we cannot regard it as the inspiration of the mere officer in command of the ship.
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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND bas, by its firm and dignified insistence, secured a satisfactory adjustment, without resorting to measures that the temper of some peoples would have made inevitable.
AN INTERNATIONAL MAGNA CHARTA.
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- [July 30, 1904. disputing his authority. Whatever its earliest beginnings, we have seen that law has gathered unto itself more than a mere collection of "thou shalt nots." It has attracted in course of time the
"thou As apparently unarmed merchant vessels
shalts," which make of it an ethical system. the two Volunteer vessels Smolensk and St.
Our concepts of right and wrong, the late Petersburg presented themselves at the
Mr. HERBEET SPENCER would have told us, Dardanelles, and demanded permission to (Daily Press, 28th July.)
are also the fruits of evolution, acquired by pass as merchant vessels flying the mer- There does not appear to be a prima-generations of dwelling upon the conse- chant ensign. Whether there was any facial connection between international lawquences of infringements of the law. The collusion with the Porte does not appear; and the custom of wearing mourning clothes; forces of heredity deepened and confirmed at all events it does not affect the immediate but some impatient comments that have the idea that certain actions inimical to case. Showing no external sign of being recently appeared with regard to the first, the social organism were wrong, with the armed men-of-war, the two ships were and a new story recently told with reference corollary that their opposites were right, permitted to pass. At the entrance of to the second, appear to suggest an associa- until presently were men and women who the Suez Canal the two ships likewise tion almost intimate. The comments refer- did the right thing by instinct, or conscience, presented themselves under the false guise red to partook of the nature of doubting and refrained from doing the wrong in the of peaceful merchant ships. This seems allusions to the usefulness of international same easy way, without having to stop to to have been one of those needless yet law, as having back of it neither an interna- count the cost. Unfortunately, while such deliberate lies which often betray the tional law court nor an international police acquired instincts were being multiplied criminal intent of their utterer. Some- force to enforce its decrees. The story was and developed, there was always that weak where in the Red Sea the two ships took of a woman in service who asked for a brief link in the chain that Mr. Darwin had to occasion to transform themselves into holiday, and an advance of money with reckon with, atavism. There was never a regular men-of-war; their guns taken from which to "buy blacks," as her husband was generation without some members in it who the hold's where they had been concealed dead. Her mistress kindly suggested that had barked back to the primitive instincts were mounted, and the decks put in fighting it would be waste of money. Had not the and impulses that were lawless because trim. By way of getting their hand in, a
man ill-treated her and neglected her so existant prior to law. Otherwise, with the German mail steamer was overhauled, and that she had had to return to service? moral instinct uniformly evolving, law as the portion of her mail intended for Japan Was it possible that there could be any we know it would in time have disappeared taken out. We are not going to any that genuine regret for him? When did he with the disappearance of its necessity. this seeming outrage had been already die? "Oh! mum," the poor woman naively For such throws back," law is still re- planned in conjunction with Berlin; we in admitted, "he died nine months ago in jail,quired, and since auch ethical" inct do not believe it was, but the Russian but I've just heard of it. I must go into
sports are unable to appreciate the mere inhibi- Government felt from the course of recent blacks. It ain't respectable not to.' With tions of law as binding upon themselves, negotiations with the German Government
no more preamble, we may proceed, in the arm of the law, which is force, compul- that it could, as in the case of the recent medias res, to demonstrate the essential con- sion, must perforce be still held up. The police laws, count on the strong sympathies sanguinity of these two apparently incou poor woman who felt she must wear mourn- of its neighbours for an easy adjustment of gruous matters, and thereby, possibly, pointing for a worthless and unloved husband so slight a trespass, Apparently, from the a moral. For while we have in these was a subject of that transmitted subjunc- tone of the German Press it was quite just-columns casually mentioned international tive adaptation of the moral judgment to fied in its calculation. Having thus paved law as a thing not yet perfectly developed, which we have referred, which we now call the way the real sensation of the act was to we have carefully refrained from alluding to conscience. She did not belong to that come off. The British steamer Malacca was it with the slightest tincture of disrespect. order which is fain to regard ull public To it we look, and to it only, for help to opinion as Philistinism, and which, in wards that brotherhood of man that the setting up its own standards, frequently anti-war people prate of. They view the only betrays its atavistic tendency toward abolition of war as the necessary antecedent enmity to law. Were all of her cerebral to universal fraternity, and so, to many capacity, the brotherhood of man would not practical minds, they seem as dreamers. In be far off, and the principles of humanity a tcld paradox, it seems to us, is truth and would exercise a more effectual control over hope to be looked for; and it is this-that the actions of human-kind. In spite of a the real federation of mankind is impossible TSAR with an eye to the happiness of the without the sword. Some days ago we majority, Russia seems to be, administra- mentioned international law as an evolu- tively, a nation not so amenable to the tional product of the crude primal laws that demands of conscience. What seems to be must have antedated the Decalogue by wanted, for such cases as hers, is another millions of years, and it is obvious that it Hague Conference, with somewhat different must have had such small beginnings. The ideals and objectives, or, at any rate, with a original object of all legislation, whether a more commonsense programme of methods. simple law upheld by a sheik, or a complica- English liberty was the direct outcome of ted system maintained by a nation, was, it baronial coercion at Runnymede. A Magna must not be forgotten, the attainment of Charta of the nations is wanted. The the greatest good of the greatest number. KING Jons-like reluctance of some govern- Law has ever been, and is now, primarily ments to sign the arbitration scheme of the the protector of the social aggregate. Pri TSAR was quite excusable. It was not marily, because it will at once to the reader that the modern law of that instinct of right and wrong is occur practical politics. Behind arbitration, until civilization pays careful attention to universally developed, must always be war, the rights of the individual, protecting the as behind the judge and jury there must weak against the strong, and, not infre- stand the police. With an alliance of all quently, the minority against the majority. the nations, pledged to punish any default. Its vital principle, however, is the coming Power, there would be greater certainty munal well-being. It has been pointed out by some philosophers as one of necessity's inventions, and the idea has occurred in many minds, no doubt, that in the earliest communities to frame a code of conduct there must have been a sort of referendum, followed by the consent either of all or of a big majority. A relation of ANDREW LANG's has pictured for us the primal law as the arbitrary rulings of the fathers of the first families, small nomad bands, in which the strongest male made himself "a judge over Israel," and drove out of the circle the younger males who might show signs of
actually going to Japan. Russia, though somewhat weakly invited by the British Government to name what she considered hould be classified as contraband of war, declined to give any binding assurance, but kept the question open. As the British Government had by implication permitted to Russia the option of declaring contra- band, and as Russia without any sufficient protest hud declined to issue any binding rule, there was obviously no appeal left from the decision of any Russian prize court. So deterrined is Russia in her as- sertions, that she actually tows her prize flying the Russian flag through the Suez Canal. Evidently, as Russia expected, the British Government, instead of placing the affair in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediter- ranean Fleet, commenced to negotiate. This, anyone not in the entourage of the Foreign Office could see was just what Russia had been playing for. She could, as she had done with Japan, drag on the negotiations till Great Britain would be forced to go to war or retire ignominiously. Either alternative would answer admirably Russia's object. If England declared war, Russia would of course have little difficulty in engaging the sympathy of Germany; at all events her "Face" was preserved, she could without loss of prestige make a favour- able arrangement with Japan, now that England was busy. If England, not willing to provoke a European war, were to retire, no matter how favourable the terms, Russia would lose no time in Asia in declaring it a concession to Russia's lordship. Now un- der long established law the outrage inflict- ed on England was one where the option lay with the aggrieved party to make it a casus belli, or merely a subject for reprisals. As our readers are aware, our Government
of international law being a living force. The mere reflection that certain things ain't respectable" does not seem a suffi- cient restraint upon some diplomats.
H.B.M.'s Consul at Newchwang writes, on the 13th inst., as follows:-I have the honour to inform you that the ports of Canton, Hong- kong, Swatow, Amoy and Foochow have been declared infected and that vessels arriving here liable to quarantine for ten days counting from from those ports after the 14th instz, will be the date of departure, after which they will be admitted to pratique unless a suspicious oras occurs on board.
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