States where revolutions have been frequent. Many questions were raised in 1885 during the insurrection in the United States of Colombia. The President of Colombia decreed:

That as the vessels of the opposing party in the port of Cartagena were flying the Colombian flag, it was in violation of right and placed that party beyond the pale of international law.

The United States refused to recognize the validity of the decree as affecting the relations of its officers to the insurgent party, and Great Britain took a similar stand. Hall has well said:

It is impossible to pretend that acts which are done for the purpose of setting up a legal state of things, and which may in fact have already succeeded in setting it up, are piratical for want of external recognition of their validity, when the grant of that recognition is properly dependent in the main upon the existence of such a condition of affairs as can only be produced by the very acts in question.

Action of the United States, 1912.-The United States by a formal act of Congress and by a presidential proclamation in accordance therewith in 1912 gave a more definite status to a condition of insurrection.

JOINT RESOLUTION To amend the joint resolution to prohibit the export of coal or other material used in war from any seaport of the United States.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the joint resolution to prohibit the export of coal or other material used in war from any seaport of the United States, approved April twenty-second, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, be, and hereby is, amended to read as follows:

"That whenever the President shall find that in any American country conditions of domestic violence exist which are promoted by the use of arms or munitions of war procured from the United States, and shall make proclamation thereof, it shall be unlawful to export except under such limitations and exceptions as the President shall prescribe any arms or munitions of war from any place in the United States to such country until otherwise ordered by the President or Congress.

"SEC. 2. That any shipment of material hereby declared unlawful after such a proclamation shall be punishable by fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding two years, or both."

Approved, March 14, 1912.

A proclamation by the President was immediately issued in accordance with the above resolution.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A FROCLAMATION.

Whereas a join resolution of Congress, approved March 14, 1912, reads and provides as follows: "That whenever the President shall find that in any American country conditions of domestic violence exist which are promoted by the use of arms or munitions of war procured from the United States, and shall make proclamation thereof, it shall be unlawful to export except under such limitations and exceptions as the President shall prescribe any arms or munitions of war from any place in the United States to such country until otherwise ordered by the President or by Congress";

And whereas it is provided by section 2 of the said joint resolution, “That any shipment of material hereby declared unlawful after such a proclamation shall be punishable by fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding two years, or both":

Now, therefore, I, William Howard Taft, President of the United States of America, acting under and by virtue of the authority conferred in me by the said joint resolution of Congress, do hereby declare and proclaim that I have found that there exist in Mexico such conditions of domestic violence promoted by the use of arms or munitions of war procured from the United States as contemplated by the said joint resolution; and I do hereby admonish all citizens of the United States and every person to abstain from every violation of the provisions of the joint resolution above set forth, hereby made applicable to Mexico, and I do hereby warn them that all violations of such provisions will be rigorously prosecuted. And I do hereby enjoin upon all officers of the United States, charged with the execution of the laws thereof, the utmost diligence in preventing violations of the said joint resolution and this my proclamation issued thereunder, and in bringing to trial and punishment any offenders against the same.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this fourteenth day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand nine-hundred and twelve and of the independence of the United States of America the one hundred and thirty-sixth.

[SEAL.]

By the President:

WM. H. TAFT.

HUNTINGTON WILSON,

Acting Secretary of State.

Consideration at Naval War College.-The Naval War College has from time to time given attention to the subject of insurgency. Lectures upon the general subject of insurgency were given by the present lecturer at the conference of 1900. Prof. John Bassett Moore discussed "Insurgents and contraband" as Situation V in 1901. The present lecturer considered "Interference by insurgents with commerce" as Situation VII in 1902; "Insurgency-(a) Asylum for insurgent troops on war vessels; (b) Seizure of United States merchant vessel by insurgents; (c) Transport service of United States merchant vessel in time of insurrection; (d) Return, during its continuance, of foreigners implicated in insurrection" as Situation III in 1904; and "Insurgency and commerce" as Situation VII in 1907.

Insurgents as pirates. While insurrections in the States to the south of the United States have given rise to many questions in regard to the rights of vessels of the insurrectionary party, frequent requests of the established Government that such vessels be treated as pirates have not met with a favorable response from the United States. The statement of Secretary Fish in 1869 in regard to Haitian insurgents is typical.

I acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch (No. 13) of the 13th ultimo, in which you inclose a copy of a note addressed by the secretary for foreign affairs of Haiti to the several members of the diplomatic corps accredited to his Government and relating to the armed steamers formerly called the Quaker City and the Florida now in the service of insurgents against the Government of Haiti. The secretary. for foreign affairs, after reciting the fact that those insurgents have not been recognized by this or any other Government as entitled to belligerent rights, declares that the vessels which form the subject of his communication can not be considered according to the spirit of international maritime law otherwise than real pirates, which it is the duty of every regular navigator to pursue for the purpose of sinking or capturing them. He further states it to be an object of his communication to obtain from each one of the vessels of the respective nations to whose representatives it was addressed an adequate and efficacious cooperation in maintaining for the marine of the civilized world the security of the seas and to guarantee the protection of private property.

The good understanding which this Government earnestly desires to maintain with that of Haiti requires that this communication should receive a frank and explicit reply.

You will, therefore, say to the secretary for foreign affairs:

1. That we do not dispute the right of the Government of Haiti to treat the officers and crew of the Quaker City and the Florida (vessels in the service of insurgents against Haiti) as pirates for all intents and purposes. How they are to be regarded by their own legitimate Government is a question of municipal law, into which we have no occasion, if we had the right, to enter.

2. That this Government is not aware of any reason which would require or justify it in looking upon the vessels named in a different light from any other vessels employed in the service of the insurgents.

3. That regarding them simply as armed cruisers of insurgents not yet acknowledged by this Government to have attained belligerent rights, it is competent to the United States to deny and resist the exercise by those vessels or any other agents of the rebellion of the privileges which attend maritime war, in respect to our citizens or their property entitled to our protection. We may or may not, at our option, as justice and policy may require, treat them as pirates in the absolute and unqualified sense, or we may, as the circumstances of any actual case shall suggest, waive the extreme right and recognize, where facts warrant it, an actual intent on the part of the individual offenders, not to depredate in a criminal sense and for private gain but to capture and destroy jure belli. It is sufficient for the present purpose that the United States will not admit any commission or authority proceeding from rebels as a justification or excuse for injury to persons or property entitled to the protection of this Government. They will not tolerate the search or stopping by cruisers in the rebel service of vessels of the United States, nor any other act which is only privileged by recognized belligerency.

4. While asserting the right to capture and destroy the vessels in question, and others of similar character, if any aggression upon persons or property entitled to the protection of this Government shall recommend such action, we can not admit the existence of any obligation to do so in the interest of Haiti or of the general security of commerce.

No facts have been presented to this Government to create a belief that the operations of the vessels in question have been with a view to plunder or had any other than a political object. That object is hostile to a Government with which the United States have maintained a friendship that it requires no fresh manifestation to evince. We deem it most decorous to leave it to that Government to deal with the hostile vessels as it

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may find expedient, reserving the consideration of our action in respect to them till some offense, actual or apprehended, to the United States shall render it imperative.

You may read this dispatch to the secretary of foreign affairs and leave a copy of it with him if he desires it. (2 Moore, International Law Digest, p. 1085.)

In Situation III (b) of 1904 (International Law Situations, Naval War College, 1904, p. 35) the question of treatment of insurgents as pirates was discussed. The situation under consideration in 1904 was as follows:

SITUATION III (b).

There is an insurrection in State X.

(b) The insurgents seize the Robin, a United States merchant vessel in the harbor, and, promising to recompense the owners, sail away with the vessel. The owners request the commander of the United States war vessel to recover the Robin in case he meets the vessel. The commander meets the Robin on the high sea. What, if anything, should the commander do?

The solution offered and supported by reference to precedents was:

SOLUTION.

The commander of the United States war vessel is justified in using such force as is necessary to recover the vessel which has been seized by the insurgents.

It was shown that piracy in the sense of international law is an act implying an animus furandi, an act undertaken with the purpose of robbery and usually accompanied by violence, and not a political act aimed at a particular State or at the citizens of a particular State.

The situation proposed as III (b) in 1904 involved a merchant vessel which had been taken by the insurgents from the American owners. The solution justified an American commander in using force to recover the vessel when met on the high sea.

Status of the "free party."-A party organized for political ends and in armed hostility against an established Government ceases to be a mob and becomes an insurrectionary body. The existence of such a status may, and sometimes must, be admitted. President Cleveland, on June 12, 1895, announced by formal proclamation that the island of Cuba was the "seat of serious civil