therefore, no official insult or wrong, as there could not be. Whatever occurred was between private individuals. It was, moreover, absolutely without national character. The domestic element of an ordinary civil disturbance was wanting. The assailants, equally with the assailed, were strangers in our land. In strict truth, the hospitality of a friendly country, no less than the rights of peaceable sojourners therein, may be said to have been outraged by a body of aliens, who, being permitted by the generosity of our laws to enter our borders and roam unchecked and at will throughout our jurisdiction, freely and profitably selecting their places of abode and finding occupation therein, abused the privileges thus accorded to them and committed gross breaches of the public peace, suddenly, and doubtless with the knowledge that nowhere within summons could any police organization be found in sufficient force to stay their criminal hands.

The volume of "Foreign Relations" for 1886 contains the full history of this demand for indemnity and the reasons for its rejection. In that correspondence with the Chinese Minister, the same principles were laid down as had been cited in the reply to the British Minister in Tunstall's case. It was said:

"To the judiciary branch is committed the administration of remedies for all wrongs, and its courts are open, with every aid they can devise, to secure publicity and impartiality in the administration of justice to every human being found within their jurisdiction. Providing thus a remedy for all individuals, whether many or few, rich or poor, and of whatever age, sex, race, or nationality, the question of liability for reparation or indemnity for losses to individuals, occurring in any way, must be settled by the judgments of the judicial branch, unless the act complained of has been committed under official authority in pursuance of governmental orders to that end. The government of the United States recognizes in the fullest sense the honorable obligation of its treaty stipulations, the duties of international amity, and the potentiality of justice and equity, not trammeled by technical rulings nor limited by statute. But among such obligations are not the reparation of injuries or the satisfaction by indemnity of wrongs inflicted by individuals upon other individuals in violation of the law of the land. Such remedies must be pursued in the proper quarter and through the avenues of justice marked out for the reparation of such wrongs. . . . I should fail in my duty as representing the well-founded principles upon which rests the relation of this government to its citizens, as well as to those who are not its citizens and yet are permitted to come and go freely

within its jurisdiction, did I not deny emphatically all liability to indemnify individuals, of whatever race or country, for loss growing out of violations of our public law, and declare with equal emphasis that just and ample opportunity is given to all who suffer wrong and seek reparation through the channels of justice as conducted by the judicial branch of our government."

There were certain features in the case which appealed strongly to the sense of humanity, and which were communicated by the President to Congress, with a recommendation that compensation for the loss of the property destroyed should be given in a benevolent spirit; and this was done by Congress, which subsequently, in 1888, made a still larger appropriation in compensation for similar losses suffered by Chinese on the Pacific coast; but in each case the award was expressly stated to have been made ex gratiâ, and was accompanied by the most distinct denial of all legal liability, under international law or treaty, to make good losses so caused.

The importance of establishing a correct principle, and the everlasting and increasing injury of consenting to an evil principle, invest this question with gravity, for it is very evident that if the government of the United States shall admit that it is liable to indemnify individuals directly, or a foreign government acting in their behalf, for injuries inflicted upon citizens or subjects of such foreign government within the United States and in violation of its laws, and that such claimants are absolved from all efforts to obtain redress in the judicial courts, which are as open to the foreigner as to our own citizens, and where justice is administered with an equal hand to either and to both, it will create a precedent which will not merely be prolific of international dissensions, but which will impair the structure of our government, seriously disarrange the system of checks and balances under our State and federal systems, and confuse and destroy the essential boundary between executive and judicial powers which is one of the most important features in the Constitution of our government.

There is a manifest and dangerous tendency in our institutions toward centralization and consolidation of power. No remedy, therefore, for alleged evils or inconveniences should be accepted that increases this tendency, for it is in the strict enforcement of

limitations upon power and its decentralization that the best hopes, and even the possibility, of free institutions of human government can be found. If, therefore, the principles of law and the arrangements for their exercise declared by our courts to be consonant with the provisions of the Constitution and essential to the preservation of individual liberty, cannot be peacea bly possessed and enjoyed by our citizens, and be acknowledged and recognized as the basis of our government, because of the presence within our borders of alien subjects and citizens of foreign powers whose personal wrongs may not be remedied to their satisfaction or to that of their government without the impairment and disorder of our system, then the time has arrived when the unquestionable and sovereign right of the United States to determine by positive law who shall be permitted to enter our gates and who shall be excluded must be exercised.

Let us ascertain our full and honorable measure of international duty, and perform it faithfully in a dignified spirit of selfrespect, not yielding to compulsion, but walking steadily in the path of self-imposed obligation.

APRIL 13.

THOMAS F. BAYARD.

THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA.

WHAT significance has the formation of the new Commonwealth of Australia? Among the advantages claimed for it by its founders are national influence; national credit; defense against an aggressive foe; the development and protection of the coast fisheries; the prevention of the influx of foreign criminals and of aliens of inferior races, Chinese or Asiatics; a "higher stature before the world"; a grander name; and a scheme of empire such as isolated colonies could not hope to carry out. These benefits, it is claimed, will be secured by the adoption of a Constitution framed after those of the United States and Canada, but avoiding the undesirable features of both and providing for a federal Court of Appeal, a Privy Council, and a Parliament consisting of a Senate and a House of Commons.

Beyond all this, it is the firm belief of many that this magnificent territory, with 8,000 miles of coast line inclosing 3,000,000 square miles, and with a present population of 4,000,000, is destined to control the Pacific and, in the near future, by the increase of its manufactures, to command the trade of all that part of the world in which it lies.

It is true that there have been men of brilliant ability opposed to federation, among others the Hon. I. E. Salomons, a Queen's counsel, who on June 4, 1890, delivered in the Legislative Council of New South Wales, of which he is a member, a brilliant speech in which he opposed federation as premature, unnecessary, and full of great and critical dangers. "As to those who see in it an instrument of independence," he said, “I regret that I know nothing in the way of argument that would affect them; but I would pray this chamber, and humbly through it the whole colony, to defer as long as may be the breaking of the link that binds us to the old country." He reminded his hearers that England is the home of freedom, that her Constitution has served as a model for every independent state, and that she laid

the foundation of civil and religious liberty (Mr. Salomons himself is a Hebrew) and struck asunder the shackles of the slave. He concluded by asserting that all that is sacred, all that is really elevated and refined in the life of the colonies has come from England, and that anything that should tend to break the ties between them and the mother country would be a step in the direction of degradation.

The replies to Mr. Salomons, however, went to show that there was no intention of separation from the mother country. On the contrary, Sir Henry Parkes, the present Premier of New South Wales, who is the oldest advocate of federation, had previously asserted that, while Australia would, by its means, rise to a higher level, and occupy a larger place in the contemplation of mankind, such a movement would find a ready response in the old country, and, indeed, that England had already awakened to sympathy with it. Its object, he said, was only to secure admission "into the rank of nations that are still under the noble and glorious flag of the Motherland." And the first resolution adopted by the Australasian Federation Conference on February 13, 1890, at the Parliament House in Melbourne, was as follows:

"That, in the opinion of this Conference, the best interests and the present and future prosperity of the Australian colonies will be promoted by an early union under the Crown."

Again, on the 7th of last May, in moving for the concurrence by the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales in the resolutions adopted by the Federation Conference on the 13th of February, Sir Henry Parkes asserted that the convention had not met to draw up a declaration of independence, but that its members had been asked to assemble to frame a federal Constitution in union with the Crown of Great Britain. "The whole of the colonies," he said, "by their delegates and representatives, have declared that the time is ripe for that to be done." On the conclusion of the debate in the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, after various postponements, on the 11th of last September the House, a very full one, adopted the scheme of union by a vote of 97 to 11, which completely put to flight all who entertained doubts similar to those of Mr. Salomons.