of an embassy in order to screen him. Prior offences must have been unknown to the head of the embassy, else he would not have been appointed. Otherwise scandal results. The reputation of an embassy demands that its members observe the law. The presumption, therefore, seems to me strong, not only that prior offences are not wiped out by reason of a subsequent diplomatic character, but also that the embassy to which such an offender is attached must desire to purge itself, and must insist upon their trial, if necessary, their punish

ment.

But with papers it may be different. They may truly relate to the work of the embassy and be in no wise charged with their custodian's earlier doings. It is therefore just to allow the embassy head to say what their character is. To take copies of them negatives their inviolability.

Moreover, and here we come to our second query, no one else can determine their character. No one else is in a position to know it. You have got to trust your resident minister altogether, or not at all and have him recalled. If he is plotting against you, there is your right of self-defense, of course, but espionage or knowledge of his secrets by judicial process should not be necessary to self-defense; they are not consistent with real immunity. Nor is it immunity to surrender papers of which copies are kept. It is not the substance of the papers, but the knowledge derived from them which counts. Real immunity demands that you shall not know what they import. In default of actual precedents, then, I should incline to think in the case in point that von Igel could properly be arrested and tried for offences charged to have been committed before his diplomatic character attached; that if von Bernstorff claimed von Igel's papers as embassy documents, they ought to have been held inviolable and that no copies of them should be retained.

The right of a state to defend itself has been alluded to. Here we have precedents; here we are on firmer ground. If any member of an embassy, resident in a state, plots against it, attempts to injure its integrity, its neutrality, its vital interests, its rights are superior to his rights, and he may be arrested and sent out of the country. Even then, however, he is not under the jurisdiction of his place of residence. The right of self-defense in the state exists for protection, not for punishment; that is left to his own government.

T. S. WOOLSEY.

SOME ADUMBRATIONS AS TO EUROPEAN PEACE

It may be worth while collating in chronological order some of the many utterances, mainly from official sources, which canvass the possible termination of the European War. They are not as yet very coherent or consistent. They show no agreement as to the terms of peace or the persons who would be acceptable as arbitrators. They do show, it is submitted, that the Powers involved are seriously considering the termination of the great conflict and that there are tentative endeavors to ascertain both domestic and foreign sentiment on this subject. Each shrinks from expressions which may encourage his enemy or dishearten his friends. Each fears that any concession may be regarded as indicating exhaustion, and as a display of the white flag. The situation is exactly such as may be helped by the good offices of a neutral government which has no ulterior purposes to serve except the general good.

The almost daily suggestions, emanating from many sources, as to the willingness and ability of the Holy Father to seek to adjust the relations of the warring Powers do not afford substantial hope. It must be recalled that Great Britain is distinctly a Protestant Power. Russia is dominated by the Greek Church. Germany is controlled by Prussia, a Protestant kingdom, ruled by the Hohenzollerns, a Protestant dynasty; France and Italy are in a state of direct conflict with the Papacy. Turkey and Japan cannot be described as in religious or moral agreement with His Holiness, and Austria, alone of the larger Powers involved, has anything like close or friendly relations with the Holy See. These suggestions of pontifical intervention or mediation may therefore be disregarded as barren and unfruitful.

APRIL 10. Sir Edward Grey declared to a reporter "Peace counsels that are purely abstract and make no attempt to discriminate between the rights and wrongs of this war are ineffective if not irrelevant."

MAY 5. The German Chancellor, Herr Von Jagow, in his note to our Ambassador at Berlin as to the use of submarines against merchant ships, among other things, said,

The German Government, conscious of Germany's strength, twice within the last few months announced before the world its readiness to make peace on a basis safeguarding Germany's vital interests, thus indicating that it is not Germany's fault if peace is still withheld from the nations of Europe.

MAY 11. Mr. Lansing published a somewhat guarded denial as to peace conferences with the British Ambassador or Mr. J. P. Morgan or communications as to peace from the Pope.

MAY 14. President Poincaré, in an address at Nancy, having reference to the declarations of Germany in her reply to the American note, said,

France does not want Germany to tender peace, but wants her adversary to ask for

peace.

We do not submit to their conditions, we want to impose ours on them. We do not want a peace which would leave imperial Germany with the power to recommence the war and keep Europe eternally menaced. We want peace which receives from restored rights serious gurantees of equilibrium and stability. So long as that peace is not assured to us, so long as our enemies will not recognize themselves as vanquished, we will not cease to fight.

The French press has widely characterized this statement as the final and authoritative announcement of the policy of France.

MAY 16. The New York Herald published the following as an official dispatch received by the British Embassy in Washington:

Rumors of an early peace rest only in Germany. It is the last gasp of the German peace propaganda. There is no intention either of England or any one of her Allies to be deterred or turned aside from tasks they have undertaken.

The New York Sun of May 19th, describes a riotous discussion in the Reichstag, where Deputy Haase, socialist, declared amid cries of "Throw him out": "One thing I will tell you; those are the best patriots who, after twenty months of war, champion the concentration of the peoples and the conclusion of the war" and amid violence and confusion President Kaempf adjourned the session.

MAY 22. Premier Briand, addressing visiting Russian officials in Paris, said, "Peace would come after a decisive victory and would insure against another world war."

This was commented on in the press as an answer to the German propaganda for peace and as stopping efforts for peace by President Wilson.

M. René Viviani, of the French Cabinet, said at Petrograd that the Allies "intended to break Germany's heavy sword."

MAY 25. A resolution was introduced in the United States Senate by Senator Lewis, of Illinois, requesting President Wilson to tender peace overtures to the combatants looking toward arbitration by the neutral nations, with the United States as referee, at the same date President

Wilson expressed his views to others that an offer to mediate would be opportune at the present moment.

MAY 27. President Wilson, in addressing the League to Enforce Peace, as the dispatches put it, "outlined in general terms the basis on which the United States would undertake to suggest or initiate a movement for peace in Europe."

He there said,

that, if it were our privilege to suggest a movement for peace, our people “would wish their government to move along these lines":

First. Such a settlement with regard to their own immediate interests as the belligerents may agree upon. We have nothing material of any kind to ask for ourselves and are quite aware that we are in no sense or degree parties to the present quarrel. Our interest is only in peace and its future guarantees.

Second. A universal association of the nations to maintain the inviolate security of the highway of the seas for the common and unhindered use of all the nations of the world, and to prevent any war begun either contrary to treaty covenants or without warning and full submission of the causes to the opinion of the world, a virtual guarantee of territorial integrity and political independence.

He further said that "public right must henceforth take precedence over the individual interests of particular nations," and he advocated the banding together of all nations to see that such right prevailed, and said that the United States was willing to be partner in such an association.

President Wilson's "peace speech" was warmly commended by the London Daily News, which found his arguments almost identical with Sir Edward Grey's recent utterances. It says, "His ideals will be unhesitatingly indorsed by the Entente Powers."

*

M. Clemenceau, however, says in an editorial "The Kaiser's childlike diplomacy has found a complacent listener in President Wilson Mr. Wilson is a candidate for reëlection. His mediation, if Europe accepted it, would be the only title he needs," but that "he publicly proclaimed his offer of intervention. Thus, as any man of common sense would have foretold, his proposition is received with cautious coldness."

"Events will show, cher Monsieur le President! Do not rush your judgment."

MAY 30. The dispatches of May 30th, from Berlin via The Hague, report conflicting opinions as expressed in the Reichstag. Dr. Stressmann, National Liberal, said,

To be sure there is with us, too, a strong feeling for peace in the army and the nation. But if you were to let the German nation vote on whether it would suffer Wilson, the protector of America's arms and ammunition shipments and of the English hunger war, to act as peace mediator, you would find a vanishing minority. We would not reject peace mediation of a really neutral Power, perhaps that of the President of Switzerland, but the hand of Wilson we reject, and we believe ourselves one with the overwhelming majority of the German people. (Applause from Conservative and National Liberals, protest from Socialists and Liberals.)

Herr Von Grafe said,

We must bear in mind that England and its transatlantic friend are trying to wage a hunger war against our women and children. We all know our entire population thereby have been more or less subjected to the hardships of this war, but we also know this policy of our enemies can never have a sufficient success among our people, as to hasten by even one day bringing about an unfavorable peace.

In the Chancellor's speeches the enemy press sees a masked retreat and that curious peace angel, Wilson, is thereby encouraged first to knock out Germany, then to extend the hand of peace.

Herr Hirsch, National Liberal said, "Will anyone seriously assert that Wilson wants to do Germany a good service? His answer to the Kaiser's letter alone contradicts that view."

Dr. David, Socialist, said emphatically "that a majority of the German people do not approve of the policy recommended by the Conservatives, that the German people do not want war with America or any other neutral Power."

A radical Socialist said that "the Conservatives feared the quick coming of peace, and were starting scenes to prevent it. Perhaps they believe the peace threads have already been spun and are trying to tear them." He added, "If our people had the freedom to declare peace without annexation we would not have to be talking about it here."

Another Socialist said,

Under no circumstances are Socialists in favor of the continuation of the war for the sake of the more or less insane object of conquest. Annexation of territory is in no way consistent with the true interest of the people.

MAY 31. The Tagenblatt's Munich correspondent reports a successful conference between the German Chancellor and the King of Bavaria and that the King and leading Bavarian personages are throughout in agreement with the lines as to peace laid down by the Imperial Chancellor, and that he repudiates all idea of Germany's intending to keep enemy territory already occupied as a future boundary.