And in any future war the carnage to be anticipated from the continual increase in the power of weapons of destruction will be more frightful than even in the examples of recent warfare. Men will now have to fight, especially in naval warfare, not only against men, but against machinery; guns will be loaded by steam, and broadsides and torpedoes fired by electricity. Happy will the writer be, and still happier the statesman, who can contribute, in however remote a degree, to avert or to mitigate the calamities of such a warfare. "It must needs be that offences come, but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh." It only remains to say a few words regarding the preparation of the present Edition. My original work was always imperfect, in every sense of the term,-among others in having no chapters on the functions and privileges of ambassadors and other representative ministers. Also the important precedents afforded by recent events required careful consideration. It had long been my intention to supply these deficiencies, but the demands on my time of a very active life, and I fear also the proverbial "thief of time," prevented my doing so, and now for some years my disability as a permanent invalid has disqualified me for any continuous exertion. Under these circumstances, I have been most happy in obtaining the co-operation of Professor Sheldon Amos, of whom it would be unbecoming to say more in the present page than to express my warmest acknowledgments of the value of his assistance. Of this the reader will have ample evidence as he proceeds. I trust that the result will now be found to be a treatise embodying whatever is most worth considering on this important subject. EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. My object in editing a New Edition of this Work has not been to attempt to supersede all or any of the various important works on the same subject which have appeared since the publication of the First Edition in 1839. On the contrary, I have done what I could in my annotations to direct the reader's attention at each point to the most authoritative and instructive treatment of the successive topics in the various accredited text-books of every country. But there are two points of special excellence in which, considering its compass, Mr. Manning's treatise has always seemed to me to be facile princeps; that is, (1) its strictly historical method minutely elaborated in detail; and (2) its exact appreciation of the subtle mode of combination of the Moral and Customary elements of which the Law of Nations is composed. No degree of accuracy or prolixity in detailed statement of doctrines can-especially for the younger student-be a substitute for these essential features of a treatise on the Law of Nations; and it is because I have long found myself compelled to urge students to betake themselves to Mr. Manning's treatise, whatever other books they might usefully study likewise, that I have done what in me lies to assist the author in meeting the want occasioned by the book being now out of print. Only in very rare cases have I ventured to interfere with the continuity of the exposition by interpolating matter of my own. It is a characteristic of the work that the artistic form is too complete in itself, and the sequence of reasoning too exact and severe, to have rendered this method of emendation tolerable. The bulk of my notes are at the close of the chapters. My general opinions both on moral and legal points are in harmony with those of the author, and where there are differences. in our detailed judgments on past events I have seldom thought it worth while to obtrude them on the reader's attention. I believe the book now presents a systematic and exact, though of course not an exhaustive, view of every part of the subject in its latest phases. S. A 9, KING'S BENCH WALK, TEMPLE. |