in this sphere of control over nascent dynasties, that the most difficult and, as far as other nations are concerned, the most important powers of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, must in future be exercised and some new and better arrangements must be made for the conduct of such affairs.

Hitherto it has been, and at present it is, from unseen agencies in the Colonial Office, and in the East India House, that the course of legislation for the dependent states of the empire has been derived. If difficulties arise, the name and shadow of the Privy Council are pretended to sanction some attempt at an adjustment of them. It is only after a question of legislation for a dependent state has been encumbered and entangled with volumes of correspondence; after Governors and Secretaries of State, nay, the Crown itself, has been committed and pledged to a course of error, that the matter comes before Parliament: and then the most usual step has been to appoint a Committee of Inquiry in the Commons, which necessarily falls under the guidance of those who have been in possession of the accumulated mass of evidence, and who must desire that the report of the Committee shall screen whatever faults they have already committed, and afford such an authority for pursuing the course in which they are involved as may remove the responsibility of doing so from themselves. In any later stage, and after all this has taken place, with what facilities and advantage does the House of Lords, or a future Parliament, approach the subject; when, at last, the deaf ear can no longer be turned to the cries of the discontented, as they rise into a higher and yet higher key, and are accompanied by the grave and deep tones of popular indignation, and the distant but swelling notes of war? In the next session of the Imperial Parliament the following subjects must unavoidably come before it. If the Parliament is capable of empire, they may be arranged by its controlling wisdom

L

and powers so as to be the foundations of social systems, which for ages may give a character to the fortunes of mankind. But these lofty tasks may be evaded: avoided they cannot be.

1. The laws made in the colonial legislatures of the West Indies for the freedom of the negroes.

2. Lord Durham's ordinances for the future government of the North American provinces.

3. The penal code for all India, which has been laid upon the table of the House of Commons.

Australia is at present but a nebulosity.

VI.

INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNALS.

THE greatest triumph of society would be the establishment of a tribunal competent to the decision of the quarrels of nations. Throughout the history of mankind we find attempts at the accomplishment of this great object. But with what short-lived and what feeble success!

The first principle of such an institution ought to be the absolute, the entire, the eternal abnegation of force. Not even when its decrees should be shamelessly contemned and opposed, ought there to be any forcible execution of them; but all the litigant parties should be left to the free choice of acquiescing in the decision, or of continuing as they best could the assertion of their claims. The great object would be the prevention of war: how, then, could war be waged in support of the authority set up to put an end to war? The only chance of success would be from time to time to compose the tribunal of those who for the time should be the wisest of their kind, and for the influence of their decrees to look to the wisdom of their decrees.

It will be in America, probably, if any where, that this step in civilization will be gained. There is no science in which the Americans are so forward as in the science of law founded on reason. Kent, Storey, and Wheaton, are names scarcely known in this country, but their works are

in themselves sufficient for the foundation of a general jurisprudence.

That not even these men have yet emerged from national prejudices, will be seen in their works. The following passages from Dr. Wheaton's "Elements of International Law" (8vo. London: Fellowes, 1836), bear upon a subject which is deeply implicated with the affairs of Canada, and with the question of the boundaries of Maine and New Brunswick. A settlement of them all, according to the fashion of the Old World, would require to be preluded by a century of warfare.

"By the treaty of Vienna, in 1815, the commercial navigation of rivers, which separate different states, or flow through their respective territories, was declared to be entirely free in their whole course, from the point where each river becomes navigable to its mouth; provided that the regulations relating to the police of the navigation should be observed, which regulations were to be uniform, and as favorable as possible to the commerce of all nations.*

"By the Annexe XVI. to the final Act of the Congress of Vienna, the free navigation of the Rhine is confirmed in its whole course, from the point where it becomes navigable to the sea, ascending or descending;' and detailed regulations are provided respecting the navigation of that river, and the Neckar, the Mayn, the Moselle, the Meuse, and the Scheldt, which are declared in like manner to be free from the point where each of these rivers becomes navigable to its mouth. Similar regulations respecting the free navigation of the Elbe were established among the powers interested in the commerce of that river, by an act signed at Dresden, the 12th December, 1821. And the stipulations between the different powers interested in the free navigation of the Vistula, and other rivers of ancient Poland, contained in the treaty of the 3rd May, 1815, between Austria and Russia, and of the same date between Russia and Prussia, to which last Austria subsequently acceded, are confirmed by the final act of the Congress of Vienna. The same treaty also

* Acte Final du Congrès de Vienne, art. 14, 96, 109.

extends the general principles adopted by the Congress relating to the navigation of rivers to that of the Po.*

"The interpretation of these stipulations respecting the free navigation of the Rhine, gave rise to a controversy between the kingdom of the Netherlands and the other states interested in the commerce of that river. The Dutch government claimed the exclusive right of regulating and imposing duties upon the trade within its own territory, at the places where the different branches into which the Rhine divides itself fall into the sea. The expression in the treaties of Paris and Vienna, "jusqu'à la mer”—to the sea, was said to be different in its import from the term " into the sea:" and besides, it was added, if the Upper States insist so strictly upon the terms of the treaties, they must be contented with the course of the proper Rhine itself. The mass of waters brought down by that river, dividing itself a short distance above Nimiguen, is carried to the sea through three principal channels, the Waal, the Leck, and the Yssel: the first descending by Gorcum, where it changes its name for that of the Meuse; the second approaching the sea at Rotterdam; and the third, taking a northerly course by Zutphen and Deventer, empties itself into Zuyderzee. None of these channels, however, is called the Rhine; that name is preserved to a small stream which leaves the Leck at Wyck, takes its course by the learned retreats of Utrecht and Leyden, gradually dispersing and losing its waters among the sandy downs of Kulwyck. The proper Rhine being thus useless for the purposes of navigation, the Leck was substituted for it by common consent of the powers interested in the question; and the government of the Netherlands afterwards consented that the Waal, as being better adapted to the purposes of navigation, should be substituted for the Leck. But it was insisted by that government that the Waal terminates at Gorcum, to which the fide ascends, and where consequently the Rhine terminates: all that remains of that branch of the river from Gorcum to Helvoetsluys, and the mouth of the Meuse, is an arm of the sea, enclosed within the territory of the kingdom, and

* Mayer, "Corpus Juris Germanici," Tom. II. pp. 224, 239, 298. Acte Final, art. 14, 118, 96.