refusal of the United States, in 1856, to join in the clause of the
Declaration of Paris abolishing privateering was avowedly based upon
the ground that it did not go far enough. The American claim was that
not only private seizure of enemy's goods at sea should be prohibited,
but that all private property of the enemy at sea should be entitled to
the same protection as on land--prizes and prize courts being thus
almost abolished, and no private property of the enemy anywhere being
liable to confiscation, unless contraband of war. It was frankly stated
at the time that without this addition the abolition of privateering
was not in the interest of Powers like the United States, with a small
navy, but a large and active merchant fleet. This peculiar adaptability
of privateering at that time to the situation of the United States
might have warranted the suspicion that its professions of a desire to
make the Declaration of Paris broader than the other nations wished
only masked a desire to have things remain as they were.

But the subsequent action of its Government in time of profound peace
compelled a worthier view of its attitude. A treaty with Italy,
negotiated by George P. Marsh, and ratified by the United States in
1871, embodied the very extension of the Declaration of Paris for which
the United States contended. This treaty provides that "in the event of
a war between them (Italy and the United States) the private property
of their respective citizens and subjects, with the exception of
contraband of war, shall be exempt from capture or seizure, on the high
seas or elsewhere, by the armed vessels or by the military forces of
either party." Is it too much to hope that this early committal of the
United States with Italy, and its subsequent action in the war with
Spain, may at last bring the world to the advanced ground it
recommended for the Declaration of Paris, and throw the safeguards of
civilization henceforth around all private property in time of war,
whether on land or sea?

[Sidenote: The Monroe Doctrine Stands.]

Here, then, are three great principles, important to the advancement of
civilization, which, if not established in International Law by the
Peace of Paris and the war it closed, have at least been so powerfuly
reinforced that no nation is likely hereafter lightly or safely to
violate them.

But it has often been asked, and sometimes by eminent English writers,
whether the Americans have not, at