The opportunity has now come to China to do the same thing for the modern world which Rome did for the jurisprudence of Europe. Commerce and international intercourse bringing new sets of questions: into the history of law which cannot be dealt with adequately in any existing national system, No code embodying strictly national history is adequate to deal with the growing economic interdependence of the world to-day. "International law tends, therefore, to reach from the outside into the activities of nations in order to establish principles of justice in this new world of international relations. But the proper field and scope of international law, and its relation to domestic or national systems is extremely uncertain and indefinite.
The League of Nations has sought to extend the sphere of international law through the advisory opinions
itself, in its normal—proced! similarly extends the scope of int fof the Court. The World ce) national law but, on the other hand, rations have by no means surrendered the most essential of their existing legal privileges.
Sovereignity is still a reality in the world of lay. The adjustment of those conflicting tendencies, the one toward the enlargement of law and the other toward the assertion of national systems, is the supreme problem in the-realm of law both now and for the future, For the Powers as Well While on the one hand the opportunity to do a great thing is almost unparalleled in the history polities, on the other hand any tendency to use the instruments of justice for mere political expediency brings inevitable disaster. Justice {iy not-an abstract thing. It is the description of the way in which the humblest citizen og well as the most powerful deals with his fellow man, It is the picture of the daily life of the obscure as well as of the haviour of nations. It, therefore, feannot be trifled with or falsified without injury to both the citizen and to the state, And the measure of nation's happiness as well as its political maturity is to be found in the provision which it makes for perfecting justice, The opportunity for effecting g¥eat reform lies not only before China but before the other Powers as well. The time has come for East and West to turn from con-ict to ce-operation. The solution of extraterritoriality in China should carry with it the solution of a larger problem still, East and West have now to reconcile their centuries of diverse history and social adjustment, There is 0 escape from this historical impor. ative, The compelling might of modern science and industry is already fusing these ancient divers ities of habits and of moral Commission of Jurists Suggested If now China and the Powers address themselves to the solution of this problem of juristic "launs, they will have established something far outreaching any concep. tions of "sovereignty, for the principles involved are those which row with the sdminaration Yor plicable the world over whenever 7 and wherever the mingling of peoples and of interests brings similar rebloms to the governments of the civilized world.
The suggestions offered in this memorandum donot attempt cover all the intricacies of the problem of extraterritorilitys they do not even attempt to cover all of the points made in the recommendations of the Commission on Extraterritorality. They deal only with the conditions Inid-down by Great Britain and the United States in their treaties at the opening of the twen-teeth century. All that the present memorandum attempts to do is to int out clearly how these condi: tions may conesivably be niet by a method which would leave unquestioned the validity of both the Political and the juristic point of View, If the suggestion is worth con sidering, the details. of any definite proposal should be left in the hands St. a competent commission Surists upon the due hand, and of the established organs of diplomacy upon the other—Reuter,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.