world law, so that it may again be universal as it was in its original medieval form. The European Railway Freight Union has created an international code of transportation which must be considered one of the most notable achievements of modern international activity in the field of legislation. The very nature of communication makes it an international interest and establishes the unavoidable necessity of legislating in this matter from the point of view of universalism regarding the world as a unified economic organization.

The same principles apply to correspondence by letter and telegrams. Rapidity of intelligence and notification is essential to the success of the efficient exploitation and control of the manifold natural resources of the earth and of its greater industrial and commercial enterprises. The impossibility of treating any of these interests from the point of view of a national policy alone was illustrated in a most striking fashion in the case of radiotelegraphy. When this process had gained recognition as a practical method, the British Marconi Company secured an exclusive contract with the British Lloyd and with the Italian Government for telegraphic service between vessels and the coast. Under this arrangement the wireless stations in these two countries would refuse to receive or send messages of any other system than that of Marconi. The political advantages of such an arrangement to a power like Great Britain are apparent at first sight; but this attempt at establishing a universal monopoly in so important an interest aroused the opposition of other states, especially of Germany, and it was attacked in the name of the general freedom of communication among nations. The two powers which favored restriction could not resist the logic of the opposition, so that finally in 1906 an agreement came into being which guaranteed for the future the international freedom of wireless communication.

Other interests which have been organized on an international basis, while not so clearly international in their nature, nevertheless contain prominent elements which have led to insistent demands for a universal organization. The scientific and positive interests connected with labor have long been organized on an international basis, and the problems of labor legislation can be dealt with satisfactorily

only from an international point of view. There are several elements in the labor situation of the world which render such a policy necessary. In order adequately to protect its own labor elements, any nation would be obliged to enact legislation which might seriously handicap its national industries unless assurance were given that foreign competitors should be bound by the same obligations. Efficient protection of national labor is therefore scarcely possible through the isolated efforts of an individual state. It must rest upon a basis of international understanding. Moreover, labor itself is an international force. Scarcely any nation at the present time provides from its own population all the labor forces of which it is in need. More or less permanent migrations of laborers from country to country take place at all times. The supply of labor therefore is international in scope and calls for international control.

Among all the prime economic interests that of agriculture appears at first sight to be entirely local and national. Yet, a less superficial consideration of the interests involved will show that agriculture is by no means an activity that can be fully protected upon a national basis. International protection is demanded against the importation of plant and animal diseases. In order that agricultural operations may effectively be adjusted to atmospheric and climatic conditions, the meteorological service ought to be organized upon an international basis. Accurately to determine the status of the market for agricultural products, world-wide determinations of the conditions of supply and demand are necessary; and agricultural labor, in fully as great a measure as that employed in the industries, is dominated by international conditions and population movements.

In scientific and administrative processes, it is the common experience of the entire world which is required in order that the most satisfactory results may be obtained. But it is especially in the field of criminal and sanitary administration that a large measure of international cooperation is necessary in order that national property and population may be protected. Modern criminal administration looks upon punishment as the lesser among its various tasks and concentrates its efforts upon the means of preventing crime. Hence, extradition by no means fulfills all the requirements of international

action. Crime is organized internationally; the prevention of crime must therefore be effected in a similar way. We need only think of the most fundamental crime against state existence, the plottings of revolutionary anarchism, to realize fully how important international cooperation will be to the future efficiency of the protective service. Thus, we may review all the interests of civilized humanity, intellectual or material, and we shall doubtless find in each of them certain elements which call for international action and organization. It is only when full advantage is drawn from the possibilities of international cooperation that such interests can in the future unfold and grow to their proper importance.

The body of law which is thus being created by the action of the authoritative organs of public international unions, and by cooperation among governments, is distinguished from general international law in that it not merely regulates the relations between national states, but undertakes to establish positive norms for universal action. We may tentatively apply to it the designation of international administrative law, defining it as that body of laws and regulations created by the action of international conferences or commissions which regulates the relations and activities of national and international agencies with respect to those material and intellectual interests which have received an authoritative universal organization. The law thus created contains principles and rules that might be viewed as the beginning of a universal civil law. This is true especially with respect to rules created in the matter of communication, such as the principle that telegrams and letters must be carried, but even these principles refer to administrative action, so that they may be embraced in the designation which we have used above. Should the efforts to unify the maritime law of the world be crowned with success, the body of law thus created would not properly be included under the above designation; it would be important enough by itself to be dealt with under its traditional name as a branch of the universal law of communication. In its elaboration and enforcement, however, international administrative organs would take an essential part.

The general purposes that are being achieved by the creation of an

international administrative law may be looked at from three different points of view. It is desired, in the first place, that a mutuality of advantages be secured for the citizens of all civilized states. In

a portion of international legislative administration, the object therefore is not so much to change the national law as to secure for the subjects of one state the advantages of legislative and administrative arrangements in others. The national law with respect to patents, copyrights, or the admission to liberal professions may continue to differ in the various jurisdictions. The object of international arrangements would be to secure for the foreigner the advantage of the national law as it stands, so that he would be placed in the same position of right with respect to these matters as are the subjects of the state in question.

A second general object is the regulation of the administrative activities with respect to these world-wide interests on a basis adequate to their extent and importance. Such regulation may create an entirely new law, which the various national administrations bind themselves to respect, or it may involve the modification to a certain extent of national methods of procedure.

Finally, there is the ideal of uniformity or universality of law, which will be to a certain extent pursued in all these international unions. This ideal, on account of the simplicity and equity of the relations which it involves, is not merely attractive from the intellectual point of view, but, in a measure as it is achieved in any field, it clearly serves to free business intercourse and action from all kinds of difficulties and obstructions. It must, however, be noted in con

nection with this idea that it will be far easier to introduce uniform principles into the field of pure administrative activities than to establish a similar homogeneity in principles which have become part of the civil law. International administration has the advantage of operating largely in a field that has not been occupied as yet by systematized methods and historic traditions, such as is the case in the field of private law. Private international law, dealing with conditions and characteristics based on a long national experience, has far greater obstacles to overcome in its unifying efforts than has international administrative law.

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As the purposes thus outlined are achieved more and more, great advantages are to be gained. Homogeneous development, uniformity, and simplicity are favored. Commercial and industrial intercourse is facilitated by the absence of irrational local differences in legal rules. Unfair competition is prevented by the uniformity of national regulations, which places competition the world over upon a higher plane, and which checks the granting of entirely unfair advantages to national enterprises and industries. The disadvantages flowing from the lack of international cooperation may be illustrated by examples taken from the field of insurance. As the operations of life insurance have become international, the scientific and technical activities connected with insurance have already been given an international organization in the Actuarial Congress. This interest has not, however, as yet been provided with public organs of international administration. The attitude of various national administrations illustrates the difficulties created by a lack of uniformity in regulations. Thus, the German Government demands that any foreign insurance company doing business in Germany shall submit its transactions in all the countries of the world to the control of the German administration. France has recently established the requirement that all insurance companies operating in that country must invest solely in French public securities, which pay at the present time an interest of about three per cent. These regulations are plainly due to the solicitude of the national administration for its subjects who may become insured in foreign companies. But consider what a burden is placed upon the business of insurance — a burden which of course must ultimately be borne by the insured. If each government should demand an account of the entire business of a foreign insurance company for the purpose of complete control, the expense and burden involved would become intolerable. When the governments of the older states require investments to be solely in their own low-interest-paying funds, they exclude the insured from the advantage of perfectly safe investments in new countries at nearly double the rate of interest. All these difficulties would be avoided could there be created an international bureau for the auditing and control of insurance investments. Investigations of the