INTRODUCTION

BEFORE his lamented death, on January 21, 1925, Professor William Carey Morey had collected, with the purpose of offering them for publication, the papers now presented under the title he had chosen for them. They now appear as his hand left them, his last legacy to the successive classes of students who, at the University of Rochester and through his books, for more than forty years followed his illuminating instruction in the history of political institutions.

These "Diplomatic Episodes" constitute no part of Doctor Morey's formal instruction to his classes. Like many other papers from his hand, they are brief disquisitions upon subjects which he deemed of importance to men of culture and were composed and presented to his classes as supplementary information rather than as constituent parts of his general courses of study. It is perhaps from this point of view that they will make their appeal to a wider circle seeking the same enlightenment.

The wide range of Doctor Morey's learning, his comprehension of the student's needs, the lucidity of his mind and the directness and clarity of his style as a writer contribute to the effective treatment of these carefully selected topics of discussion.

No teacher ever better understood the nature of the student's mind or the art of appealing to his intellectual interest. A varied experience added to an active and logical habit of thought made him a master

in the exposition of any subject to which he devoted his attention.

Born at North Attleboro, Massachusetts, on May 23, 1843, in 1862 he entered the University of Rochester as a freshman in the class of 1866, but almost immediately enlisted in the Army of the United States and served with distinction in the War for the Union, being retired at the end of the war as Brevet Lieutenant Colonel of Cavalry.

Returning to college he was graduated with the class of 1868. After four years of study and teaching elsewhere, he was called by his Alma Mater to be professor of Latin, a position which he held for ten years, giving special attention to the historical, legal and political literature of that language. In 1883 he gave up his professorship of Latin and was made professor of history and political science, a chair which he occupied with conspicuous success until his retirement as emeritus professor in 1920.

The first fruit of Doctor Morey's special studies was his Outlines of Roman Law, which appeared in 1884, a carefully conceived and comprehensive treatise which immediately won a place as a text-book in many colleges. His researches on The Genesis of a Written Constitution, published in 1891 in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, constitute a valuable piece of original investigation. Later appeared a series of historical text-books, growing out of his regular courses of instruction.

During many years Doctor Morey's opinions on current questions of national and international interest were solicited by the press, eliciting such expressions of sound and mature judgment regarding public policies as are to be found in his essays on "The Treaty

Making Power and the Legislative Authority of the States" (1909); "The South African Union and British Colonial Policy" (1910); “Federalism and International Liability” (1913); “The Sale of Munitions of War" (1916); and many others.

In Doctor Morey's mind events had little interest. apart from their causes and consequences. With all that was merely spectacular he had no concern. As a citizen and as a scholar his mind was pre-occupied with the problems of human progress. His dominant thought was his conviction of genetic relationships in the process of historic development. Nothing, he believed, could be understood by itself.

The absence of system in this collection of detached "Episodes" has its reason perhaps in the fact that Doctor Morey was interested in showing the really episodical character of international law and diplomacy as they exist to-day. With a singular faculty for the orderly arrangement of ideas, he could not overcome his loyalty to truth by making the pretense that these subjects possess in reality the character of an organized science. No one had a clearer perception of what international law might in time become, but in a spirit of faithfulness to reality he preferred to present it in its concrete applications as it actually is.

And this fidelity to reality, I venture to think, is the great merit of this book. Skillfully avoiding the illusions of theory so often interwoven with the substance of doctrine on this subject, he appeals to practice as the test of what the law of nations really is at the present time. But in doing this he discloses also the fundamental principles of international right which, if logically applied, would lead to the creation of a different world.

Notwithstanding the well-nigh universal profession of a desire for peace, human experience seems to show that the theoretical possibilities of diplomacy do not always appear to be realized in the actual processes of diplomatic procedure. The seeds of discord continue to exist in human nature and in national life, the fruits of which are seen in international rivalries and strife. The moral character, the motives, the temper and the ideals of nations are most clearly exposed when they are engaged in settling their differences with one another. Then they indicate whether they are inclined to make the worse appear the better reason, or to do unto others as they would have others do unto themselves. In many respects, the ethical spirit of a people is shown in their diplomatic methods, whether they be honest and moved by justice, or whether they be dishonest and tainted with trickery and deceit. While every nation is guided by its own moral sense, it may be a question whether the largest part of the world's diplomacy is not inspired by the spirit of fairness and the desire to allay, rather than to excite, the causes of international jealousy and distrust.

To give some concrete examples of practical diplomacy, there have been gathered together in this volume a number of historical incidents bearing upon international relations. These episodes have been discussed to point out the salient points at issue in each controversy, to show the mode in which diplomatic methods may be used in the interests of peace, and to suggest the way in which international diplomacy has extended to the development of certain phases of internaţional law. They show, for example, the difficulties arising from the misunderstanding of a treaty

and the failure to recognize the rights of a neutral state, as was the case in the first diplomatic controversy between Great Britain and the United States during the administration of Washington. They show the unexpected issues that may arise from a federal form of government in dealing with an international question, as occurred to Daniel Webster, while Secretary of State, in the noted case of the "Caroline." They also show how the international law of recognition became clarified and rendered more distinct to the American people, through the efforts of the United States to enfranchise the oppressed people of Cuba.

One of the most remarkable illustrations of the perversion of modern diplomacy is seen in the threatened partition of China by the Western European powers -there being no instance in recent times of such a systematic attempt to exploit the resources of an independent state, except perhaps that of Poland. A far different use of diplomatic methods was evident in the opening of the Suez canal-the status of which was not fixed at the outset by any provision of the existing international law, but for which European diplomatists provided a new law to meet the case in hand. How far the international policy of the United States conformed to the principles of international law, in the opening of the Panama canal, is perhaps still a mooted question, but it is discussed by the author, who inclines to the affirmative.

In these discussions there is explained the important part taken by the United States in the development of the modern law of neutrality, and the application of that law in respect to the sale of munitions of war during the recent world conflict. The need of diplomatic methods in the adjustment of the relations be