will, but according to principles carefully ascertained and properly applied.

Although the legislative acts of the King, as compared one with another, were classified as ordonnances, which were fundamental laws or laws of great importance, édits (edicts), which were acts of ordinary legislation to meet changing circumstances, and déclarations (declarations), which were interpretations or explanations of existing laws, they were all called, as distinguished from the acts of subordinate officers and tribunals, ordonnances. All acts of subordinate officers and tribunals were called réglements (regulations). Dispositions made by the King usually related to 'matters of public concern, while those made by subordinate officers and tribunals usually related to matters of private concern—that is, directly affected individual life, liberty, or property. Hence, in process of time, the acts of the King relating to matters of private or particular concern came to be called réglements; and thus the acts of the King became divided into two kinds, ordonnances and réglements.

The power of disposition of the King extended, of course, to everything that was recognized as within the power of the State. The King, therefore, "disposed of " what Vattel called "the domain" and "the empire" of the State. Dispositions of the domain were the partition of unoccupied land for the purpose of settlement and determinations of the right of partition or ownership of settled lands; and, as the domain included the power not only over the land, but of every product or division of the land, the disposition of it included power over all private property exercised by way of seizure for public use (expropriation), or for the support of the government (taxation). Dispositions of the empire were the partition of governmental power over the actions of persons to officers, tribunals, and subordinate governments of municipalities and administrative districts. The Local

Assemblies were called Parlements (Parliaments), Cours (Courts), or Conseils (Councils), and were consultative and advisory bodies only, with the right to offer criticism, remonstrance, or protest against any proposed disposition by way of ordonnance or réglement before registering it on their journals, but not to obstruct the execution of a law after the King had heard and acted upon the remonstrance. The power of the King over the dependencies seems never to have been doubted, and it was considered to be subject to the same moral obligation as in France itself. Thus, M. Émilien Petit, writing in 1778, when the question as to the character and extent of the power of the metropole over its dependencies was the burning question of the day, carefully refrains, in his Dissertations sur le Droit Public des Colonies Françoises, Espagnoles et Angloises, from claiming unlimited and unconditional power for the King, but contents himself with specifying what the King may do in the dependencies. He says:

The government of the French colonies is entirely in the hands of the King. To his Majesty belongs the command of the military and naval forces; the nomination of local administrators, governors and intendants; the choice of judges and provision for them; the determination of the respective powers of officials; the defence and protection of the colonies; the power to cause their inhabitants to dwell together peaceably and religiously; the maintenance of their governments; the security of their commerce; the reformation of judgments rendered by administrative officials or by local councils; and the power of ordaining or permitting the levy of taxes.

These objects of the exercise of the sovereign authority by our Kings are announced to the colonists by the regulation of 1671, by the,edict of 1674, and by subsequent laws regarding the administration and government of the colonies, derived from these two ordinances.

The Constitution and laws of France were regarded as in force in the dependencies except in so far as they were

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rendered inapplicable by the local circumstances and conditions. The King, in his expert management of the dependencies, took care to see that this principle was enforced, and the difficulty and delicacy of the problems growing out of the adjustment necessitated by the application of this principle were fully recognized-the greatest statesmen of the time giving their personal attention to the subject. Richelieu and Colbert, for instance, during the seventeenth century, devoted a great part of their eminent abilities to the solution of colonial problems, with the result that the connection between France and its colonies was kept harmonious, that the relationship was at the same time profitable to it and beneficial to them, and that France attained to a high position among the powers of Europe.

In the beginning of French colonization, this process of adjustment between France and its dependencies was clearly apparent. The original French colonizing schemes took the form of the creation of companies by royal ordinance for the purpose of transporting persons to the region to be colonized and developing its resources, the consideration for their agreement to transport being the grant of large tracts of land which they were at liberty to sell to the colonists. The companies were legally located in France and were as much subject to the Constitution, laws, and customs of France in carrying on their business as were any other corporations of the Realm. From the necessities of the case, they were given jurisdiction over the soil, things, and persons within the colony, sufficient to enable them to keep order and to protect the settlements from attack. Sometimes a representative of the King in the colony was provided. The revenue from the mere sales of land proving inadequate, there was soon granted to these companies the monopoly of buying the products of the colonies and of selling them in France. From these grants of the privileges of government

of monopoly, these companies were called " priveed companies" (compagnies privilégiées).

The charters, and hence the privileges, were usually ginted for a term of years, and at the expiration of the ten the King was at liberty to resume the powers gnted or to grant them again on the same or other condions, so that, from time to time, adjustments were måe in which the respective interests of France and the depndencies were considered.

Leer, when the monopolies began to grow very valuåble, and the colonies began to complain of enriching private individuals when the services of protection for which they were demanding tribute were really performed by the French Government, the charters were not renewed en their expiration, and the French Government substituted itself to all the rights and obligations of the colonizing company and took the whole disposition of the property and affairs, formerly administered by the company, into its hands. Thus, after this change, there was still no question but that the Constitution, laws, and customs of France were in force in the colonies to the extent that they were not rendered inapplicable by local circumstances and conditions. The theory of the French Government that all governmental power was to be exer cised expertly and scientifically stood France here in good stead. The adjustments and readjustments between the French Constitution, laws, and customs on the one hand and the local circumstances and conditions on the other were made judiciously and advantageously. The chief need of the colonies was physical protection against outside interference, not only from the native tribes, but from civilized foreign States. The cost of such protection was much more than it would have been had the colony been an integral part of France. The method of collecting payment for such protection by process of taxation which prevailed in France was impracticable for

many reasons, and so it was considered equitable that this extra expense should be compensated for by indi rect taxation by way of imposts. Certain obligations were therefore imposed on the dependencies calculated to return to France indirectly this extra expense. The trade between France and its dependencies was treated as coasting trade and obliged to be carried in French vessels, thus allowing the French ship-owners to make an extra profit. The manufacturing by the colonists of their raw materials was forbidden, and this manufacture was required to be done in France, thus giving French manufacturers an extra profit in this way, and the colonists were forbidden to buy anything which could be manufactured in France except from the French manufacturers, thus giving them a profit in another way. The colonists were obliged to sell all their products in France, and the whole French people thus enabled to derive a profit by the saving in price over that which it would bave been had the colonists been able to sell in the dearest market; but, in order that the colonists might have the best chance possible in the French market, they were given an advantage with their products over foreign States by differential duties imposed against the foreign products,

All this complicated adjustment, necessitated by the fact that the Constitution, laws, and customs of France regarding taxation were inapplicable by reason of the local circumstances and conditions, was given the name of "the colonial pact" (le pacte colonial). Because it was a system of mutual restrictions to some extent, and because it involved the doing of something on the one side and the doing of something on the other in return, the arrangement has some of the outward form and appearance of a contract, but it was never inferred from this resemblance that the powers of France over its dependencies were rights growing out of a treaty or an express contract between them. The "pact," so-called, was really the