whether by fighting or by inroads for destruction or plunder, or by raids of any kind. without commission, without being part of the organised hostile army and without sharing continuously in the war, but who do so with intermittent returns to their homes and avocations, or with the occasional assumption of the semblance of peaceful pursuits, divesting themselves of the character and appearance of soldiers are not public enemies, and therefore if captured they are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war. Article 84 applies the same rule to armed prowlers or persons of the enemy's territory who steal within the lines of the hostile army for the purpose of robbing, killing, or of destroying bridges, roads, or canals, or of robbing or destroying the mail or cutting the telegraph wires; as also to war rebels or persons within an occupied territory who rise in arms against an occupying or conquering army, or against the authorities established by the same. It is to be hoped that the adoption of these measures will not be found necessary before peace can be established.

An interesting point is raised by the announcement that the annexation of the former Republics does not pass to the British Government the rights of the Transvaal Government to compensation from the British South Africa Company for damages done by the Jameson Raid. Phillimore (International Law, vol. iii., 827, 3rd Edition), in discussing the power of the conqueror over incorporeal things belonging to the conquered State, states that "when debts due to the enemy State be situate in the conqueror's own country they cannot be acquired upon the principle on which debts in the conquered country are seized; they are not a part of the bellica occupatio, they are not captured simultaneously with the land in which they are situate, but they are acquired on the principle that when war has broken out a

belligerent has a right to compel his own subjects to pay to their own State the debts due from them to the enemy State." In English law, however, this right of the Crown is now regarded as obsolete (Attorney General v. Weeden, 1669, Parker 267; Furtado v. Rogers, 3, Bos. and P. 191); and in Wolff v. Oxholm, the Court of King's Bench determined that the action of the Danish Government which in the war in 1807 had issued an ordinance sequestrating all debts due to English subjects from Danish subjects and ordering them to be paid into its Treasury was a violation of International Law, and consequently that it was no defence for a Danish subject who had so paid the amount of his debt owing to a Dane naturalised in England (6 M. and S. 100). Whether this is correct as a statement of International law on this point may be doubtful, for the large body of jurists hold that the right of confiscating the debts of an enemy is a corollary to the right of confiscating his property (Phillimore, iii. 145-147, 853); but the right in International law certainly seems to have fallen into disuse.

Considerable comment has been made on the reputed ill-treatment and execution by the Boer Generals of their countrymen sent as peace envoys from the British headquarters to treat for peace with the Boer forces under the protection of a flag of truce. The rule of the inviolability of persons under a flag of truce is absolute, subject to the understanding that by the rules of war a military commander may refuse to receive a flag of truce, if he does receive it he may forbid it to return, he is not obliged to cease fire or stop his operations because of its approach, and he has the right to prevent an enemy taking advantage of his mission to obtain information or to tamper with the hostile forces. In case of the envoy abusing his position he may be detained temporarily, and if he has so taken advantage or commits an act of treachery he forfeits

his inviolability. Washington thus seized persons, though protected by a flag of truce, on the ground that they were deserters and traitors, persons whom crime rendered amenable to the civil law; and Hall (International Law 563) expresses the opinion that deserters, whether bearing or in attendance on a flag of truce, are not protected by it, and may be seized and executed on notice being given to the enemy of the reason of their execution. The latter's authorities do not, however, bear out this wide statement : e.g., Halleck only says that deserters where found by a belligerent among his enemies have no protection by any compact of war such as truce, capitulations, cartels, etc., unless specially mentioned, or the stipulations of amnesty are wide enough to cover these (ii., 33). The general international practice to-day seems in any event to make a person covered by a flag of truce and admitted within hostile lines inviolable, unless he transgresses one of the conditions named above, whether he can be considered a deserter from his former allegiance or not.

The reported willingness of the British Government to pay a limited amount of compensation to subjects of neutral Powers resident in the late Republics for losses suffered by them in the course of the war, is in analogy to the modern practice with regard to the jus angariæ, by which neutral property found within the hostile territory can be used or destroyed by the belligerent on condition of his making compensation for it. But in strictness if a plea of military necessity be made out, such resident foreigners must be prepared to take the consequences of International war (Hall 232).

In view of the announcement lately made, perhaps not seriously, of the intention of the Continental sympathisers

with the Boers to raise funds to enable them to carry on hostilities, it may be remembered that according to the modern practice a belligerent cannot generally regard such action by individuals as a breach of the neutrality of the State to which they belong. This question has arisen on several occasions in England, in connection with subscriptions by individuals here in favour of a belligerent, notably in the case of Poland in 1792-3, the war of Greek independence of 1823, and the civil war in Spain in 1873; and the view of the law officers in 1823 has always been followed, viz. that "while strictly speaking such conduct is inconsistent with neutrality and contrary to the law of nations a belligerent has no right to consider such subscriptions as constituting an act of hostility on the part of the Government although they might furnish just cause of complaint if carried to any considerable extent," and in Mr. Gladstone's words in 1873 "except under the Foreign Enlistment Act or the common law principle applicable to the duty of an English subject which requires him to respect the peace of the dominions of a foreign Power with which his Sovereign is at amity," this is not an offence by English law. Mr. Webster in 1842 on complaint by the Mexican Government of advances made by the American citizens to the Government of Texas with which it was at war, answered that there was nothing unlawful in this and that these were things which no Government undertakes to restrain (Hall 620).

Recent Cases,

In Bailet v. Bailet the Divorce Court has recently held that a marriage made between domiciled French subjects at the French Consulate in London according to the forms required by French law is valid. This is based on the principle of the exterritoriality of the embassy or consulate recognised by Lord Stowell in England in Pertreis v.

Tondear (1 Hagg. Cons. 136), but it is a necessary condition that one of the parties must be domiciled in the country represented by the embassy or consulate and that the forms required by the law of that country are followed. Under our Foreign Marriage Act, 1892, marriages celebrated abroad before competent marriage officers (which include British diplomatic representatives) are valid although only one party is a British subject, though they may not be valid in that country; but a marriage officer may refuse to solemnize a marriage in his opinion inconsistent with International law. The safer rule would be that both parties must be subjects; and in this sense at the Conferences on private International law held at the Hague in 1893 and 1894 (to which our Government was not a party) one of the resolutions on the essentials of a valid marriage provided that "as regards form, a marriage celebrated before a diplomatic or consular representative according to the law of the parties' country shall everywhere be recognised as valid, if both parties belong to the State which is represented by the legation or the consulate respectively and if the law of the country where the marriage has been celebrated does not forbid it, e.g., as in Germany, except for persons belonging to the ambassadorial suite.

In Dulaney v. Merry it has been held, on the principle that a transfer of moveable property good by the law of the country where it is made is valid although it is not good according to the law of the transferor's domicile, that a foreign deed of arrangement for the benefit of creditors made by a foreigner domiciled abroad need not fulfil the formalities required by such a deed if made in England, e.g., registration, in order to enable the trustee under the deed to have a good title to property of that foreign debtor in England. G. G. PHILLIMORE,