It should also be provided by statute or treaty that air-ships should carry the flag of their nation, and each its own number, corresponding to that in its official registry. The project of an international code of aviation (Règlement sur le Régime Juridique des Aérostats), reported by M. Fauchille to the Institute of International Law in 1902, looks in this direction.

Might not treaties and statutes be also desirable prescribing a mode of indicating where a landing was permitted or prohibited? If, for instance, a red flag were made the sign of prohibition, it might fairly be provided that to land in the face of such a warning should subject the aviator to an action for double damages, enforceable by his arrest.

There have already been instances of shooting at balloons in mere wantonness. Such assaults would no doubt be cognizable by the courts of the country from which the fire-arms were discharged. Should they result in death to an aëronaut, no reason is perceived why that event should not be deemed to have occurred in the country over which he was floating.

For like reasons, should bombs be thrown from an air-ship with the purpose of wrecking property on land, the offense of throwing might by possibility be justiciable in one jurisdiction and that of damaging property in another.

In the Fauchille project, it was proposed (Art. 15) to make a prosecution for such offenses lie only in the country to which the airship might belong. This would secure unity of procedure at the expense of justice.

Another point demanding official treatment is the character of a homicide or personal injury caused by an aëronaut in the course of some manœuvre intended to save his own life. That he could not intentionally take another's life for that purpose is established.15 But may he not hazard taking it, though hoping to avoid such a consequence? If in taking such a voyage he is doing a lawful act, the law of self-preservation speaks loudly in his favor.16

15 Regina r. Dudley, (L. R.) 14 Q. B. D. 273. 16 See Morris v. Platt, 32 Conn. Reports, 75.

It is obvious that aviation (including in this term the use of the Zeppelin type of air-ship), if perfected, may be productive of great public benefits.

It helps to shorten the time and limit the expense of transit from one point to another. It offers a cheap and formidable engine of war both by sea and land. It serves to train men in presence of mind, in fortitude, courage, persistence.

It gratifies also the natural love for excitement and adventure. The North pole has been discovered. The center of Africa has become well known. What is left for ardent and ambitious spirits who would do something new and original, except to conquer the air?

They are fast conquering it.

Gasoline, a by-product of petroleum once thought valueless, and the electric spark, with their high power out of little weight, have made it possible, at least, for man to fly like a bird. But he can not descend as lightly. He must bear along with him an intricate and fragile apparatus which makes him a menace to the safety of whatever he passes over.

ments.

To harmonize the aëronaut's rights with those of other men and of foreign lands over which he may take his course, demands not only adequate local legislation but adequate international agreeProfessor Meili of Zürich, the author of Das Luftschiff im internen Recht und Völkerrecht, in a recent address before the Internationale Vereinigung für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft, etc., of Berlin, has strongly advocated the convening, after due preparation and consultation, of an international conference for this purpose. It is certainly quite as much needed as that held in 1906 to regulate the international bearings of wireless telegraphy.

Such a body, to be of the greatest use, should devise more than one project of a treaty.

There are subjects involved on which all civilized nations could be expected to agree. There are also those on which they would be sure to differ. There are many regulations for times of peace which could be observed in all and consented to by all without serious difficulty. There are, on the contrary, few regulations for times of war

which would meet with universal favor. England would be apt to stand for one line of policy; France and Germany for another.

It is full time to make some attempt in this direction. During the siege of Paris in 1870, a balloon went from there to Christiania, across the North sea, in fifteen hours. in fifteen hours. Count Zeppelin's dirigible air-ship can carry a full company of soldiers and formidable cannon. France has adopted the policy of collecting a duty of a hundred and twenty dollars on every balloon of average size coming down on her territory. The new project of a Swiss commercial code, published in 1903, declares that whoever wilfully endangers the prosecution of an air-ship voyage so as to put human life in peril shall be subject to imprisonment. Particular regulations of similar kinds will multiply fast, and each makes it more difficult to negotiate a common rule by treaty.

The holding of an official international congress to consider the law of the air-ship is rendered both more easy and more difficult by the unofficial international conferences of aëronauts of which several have already been held, and the next is to meet at Bordeaux in 1910. The organization constituted by these and known as the Aëronautic Federation, has shown that for such matters as the regulation of international aviation contests for prizes it is easy and practicable for those of different nations to take concerted action. Its composition, on the other hand, has been such as to make the promotion of the interests of aëronauts an object of more prominence than the protection of those of the public generally.

A public congress called to consider this particular subject alone can probably deal more intelligently with the question of the legitimate use of the air-ship in war, than one called, like the two Peace Conferences at the Hague, to consider many different subjects. It would also be less affected by sentimental considerations. The Hague Declaration of 1907, extended to the close of the next Peace Conference a prohibition of the discharge of projectiles and explosives from balloons or by other analogous methods. Though the Declaration was ratified by the United States in 1908, the other great. powers stand aloof, and several of them voted against it when

adopted.17 While it was generally supported by those supposed to be especially the friends of peace, it may well be doubted whether peace is promoted by making war less horrible. Peace is to be striven for when consistent with honor, but when war comes the deadlier it is, the shorter it will be.

There are two lines from Locksley Hall, often quoted by those who have forgotten the thought that leads up to them, in which Tennyson's clear spirit of divination foretells horrors of the air that would make for a universal brotherhood of nations. Our days seem on the verge of giving reality to what, when he published it in 1842, seemed a visionary and fantastic forecast. Let me close by giving the whole passage:

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new,

That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do; For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,

Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be: Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,

Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales: Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations airy navies, grappling in the central blue: Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm: Till the war drums throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled In the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World.

SIMEON E. BALDWIN.

17 Scott, The Hague Peace Conferences, Vol. I, pp. 652, 653; Vol. II, p. 527, n.

THE BEGINNINGS OF AN AËRIAL LAW

During the year which has elapsed since the writer first devoted attention to some of the legal aspects of aërial navigation,1 very material progress has been made in the art itself. Longer and more regularly controlled flights have been recorded by both the dirigible balloon and the aëroplane type of aircraft, between stated localities on land, over territorial waters and even over lanes of commercial importance upon the high seas. A great number and variety of aircraft are being built for state as well as private uses in large establishments erected in many countries for that particular purpose. The field of experiment and demonstration has constantly broadened. Great nations have established a special aëronautic service for use in conjunction with both the army and the navy. So great is the importance ascribed to the function of aircraft in the next great war that much attention is already directed toward the construction of special means for effectual defense. Indeed, an entirely new type of ordnance has resulted, having, as we shall see, a notable influence upon some questions of international law.

We have sought thus to define the conditions brought about by the scientific advance of the art during the period mentioned, because it is better to confine discussion of the legal problems to facts actually accomplished, or reasonably certain of accomplishment, rather than to deal with conditions vaguely conceived as the result of speculation or prophecy.

We recognize that not all scientists are convinced that the possibilities of aërial navigation are such as to promise a complete revolution in the means of transportation and communication, as was once effected by the steamboat and the railroad. The late Professor

1 Aërial Navigation in its Relation to International Law. A paper read by the writer before the American Political Science Association at its session upon International Law, at Richmond, Virginia, December 31, 1908. Proceedings of the Association, 1908, p. 83.