Considering that since it has been shown that the convention excludes the mixed jurisdiction from the Soudan, it should be said that under the present state of affairs, on the one hand the mixed jurisdiction cannot proclaim its competence to judge a mixed process which arises in the Soudan, and, on the other hand, since the Soudan is independent from Egypt, the Egyptian Government has nothing to do with the present litigation, not having treated directly or indirectly with the claimants and it must be considered as having nothing to do with the case;

Considering that the losing party must bear the cost.

On these grounds,

It is decided, after hearing both parties (without giving a decision concerning more detailed or contrary conclusions, except to reject them): The Government of Egypt is out of the case.

And it is decided upon the evidence of the plaintiffs and the Government of Soudan that the Tribunal is incompetent.

The plaintiffs are condemned to the cost.

Decision given at the public session of the Mixed Tribunal of Cairo, reasoning on civil grounds, April 2, 1910.

Present: MM. Herzbruch, President; Rassim Bey, Eeman, Wierdels, Fuad Bey Gress, Judges; Rouchdi, Substitute; Konceqicz, Registrarclerk; Habib, Interpreter.

The President, (Signed) HERZBRUCH.

1 BOOK REVIEWS 1

A History of Canada, 1763-1812. By Sir Charles Prestwood Lucas. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1909. pp. 360, (8 maps).

This new volume by the present Head of the Dominions Department of the British Colonial Office, who has recently been honored with a title in recognition of his long and meritorious services in the Colonial Office and his excellent literary and historical work, is to be read in connection with his previously published book on The Canadian War of 1812. The period covered by this new volume is that during which the relations of Great Britain, the United States and Canada were settled upon their present basis; Canada being left in such a position as to form a connecting link between Great Britain and the United States.

The author very properly considers the American Revolution as a part of the history of Canada and analyzes the causes which led the American Colonies to declare their independence. The four chapters (two-thirds of the book) which are given up to a consideration of the period from 1763 to 1783, are principally concerned with the Revolution. The last two chapters deal with the questions arising from the presence in Canada of a large French population living under feudal conditions, and predominating, in numbers at least, over a body of native-born British subjects, partly restless adventurers and partly peace-loving loyalists exiled from the United States.

The conclusion of the author regarding the Revolution is, that the American Colonies declared their independence without adequate cause. The Revolution was, in his opinion, simply an expression of their desire for independence, latent in their minds from the earliest times; this desire being increased by Great Britain's lack of system in dealing with them. The Colonies were, in his opinion, able to accomplish their desire. because, when the test came, Great Britain, on account of its internal dissensions and the corruption in its administration, was unable to prevent them.

This judgment of the author is reached after an examination of only the social and economic causes of the Revolution. Holding these causes

1 The JOURNAL assumes no responsibility for the views expressed in signed Book Reviews. J. B. S.

inadequate, he concludes that the case is made out against the Americans and that they revolted simply because they wished to revolt. The political causes of the Revolution he dismisses in the following language (p. 37):

The constitutional question as to whether the Colonies were subject to the Parliament of the mother country or to the Crown alone may [for the purpose of determining what place the episode of the severance of the British North American colonies holds in the history of colonization] be omitted; for the story of the troubled years abundantly shows that theories would have slept, if certain practical difficulties had not called them into waking existence, and if lawyers had not been so much to the front, holding briefs on either side.

It is too frequently assumed, as the author assumes, that theories of political relationship are of no consequence, provided the actual political relationship existing between the parties is such that under it no severe social or economic oppression of one party by the other in fact exists. This assumption has often been made by states having colonies, and is still made, as the above quotation shows. But more and more it is becoming necessary to realize that the theories of political relationships are important. Less and less are civilised countries willing to recognize themselves as subject to the legally-unlimited will of an external power, however benevolently that absolute will may be exercised. The American Revolution was a great event in history because it was fought to establish a political theory. It is true, as the author says, that American lawyers were at the bottom of the Revolution, but they were great lawyers, and the universal sentiment of America and of the whole western hemisphere has approved their opinion. The following brief statement may perhaps serve to show their conclusions and the process by which they were reached: The attempted taxation of the Colonies by Acts of the British. Parliament in 1764 was met by four objections; first, that such taxation. was in violation of the fundamental compact, then assumed to exist, according to which Great Britain was obliged to protect the Colonies at its own expense in consideration of their giving Great Britain the right to monopolize their trade through reasonable regulations of trade made by the British Parliament and acquiesced in by the Colonial Legislatures; second, that inasmuch as the Colonies could not be fairly represented in Parliament on account of their distance from Great Britain, such taxation was opposed to the British Constitution; third, that such taxation was contrary to the colonial charters; and fourth, that it was contrary to "the inherent rights and liberties" of the Americans. In 1766,

66

Great Britain, on repealing the Stamp Act, rejected this assumed fundamental compact and declared its "right," through its Parliament, to "legislate" so as to bind the Colonies" in all cases whatsoever." Such a "right" necessarily implied a legally-unlimited power of legislation for the Colonies; and a legally-unlimited power of legislation of course implied a legally-unlimited power of taxation, since taxation is only a kind of legislation.

The Colonies at once met the British claim of legally-unlimited power by a claim that the power of Great Britain over the Colonies was limited, and set themselves to determine the kind of power which Great Britain ought to exercise over the Colonies, hoping to have the question settled by a new and express fundamental compact between the two countries and thus to avoid the question concerning the origin of the limitations which they were asserting. During this period from 1766 to 1775- the conclusion was reached in America that the power of Great Britain over the Colonies was either executive power pure and simple, or executive power accompanied by a power of executive legislation sufficient to make the executive power effective. The leaders of the party holding the former opinion were Adams and Jefferson. Dickinson and Washington led the other party. In 1773, Great Britain, after some years of indecision, concluded to adhere to the claim of legally-unlimited power. The attempt to enforce the tax on tea — a tax itself wholly insignificant was an overt act on the part of Great Britain evidencing its design to enforce its claim of legally-unlimited power, and as such. was met by the Americans with prompt resistance. All expectation that Great Britain would agree that its powers over the Colonies were legally-limited being thus nearly at an end, the Americans were driven to consider what was the nature of the law under which the powers of Great Britain was legally-limited. The argument based on an assumed extension of the British Constitution to the Colonies was weak, because they could not prove that that Constitution had been so extended, and when they came to examine the British Constitution they found that it was nothing but a fiction; for though the conception of a true British Constitution which should be the supreme law of the land had been evolved in England during the period from 1688 to 1710, the idea had been strangled at its birth by the British Parliament claiming to be at once the constitutional convention and the general legislature. Nor could the Americans rely upon the colonial charters, for in one of them at least the power of Parliament over the Colonies was asserted in such a

way as to give a basis for the British claim. When the Continental Congress met in 1774, the Americans thus found themselves in a position where they felt it was doubtful whether they could safely rest their case upon a law which had for its basis the British Constitution or the colonial charters, and where they began to realize that it might be necessary to base their case on the fundamental principles of natural law and justice. John Adams, in his Diary, narrating the proceedings of the Committee on Resolutions, and describing their deliberations, says: The two points which labored the most were: 1. Whether we should recur to the law of nature, as well as to the British Constitution and our American charters and grants. Mr. Galloway and Mr. Duane were for excluding the law of nature. I was very strenuous for retaining and insisting on it, as a resource to which we might be driven by Parliament much sooner than we were aware. 2. The other great question was, what authority we should concede to Parliament; whether we should deny the authority of Parliament in all cases; whether we should allow any authority to it in our internal affairs; or whether we should allow it to regulate the trade of the Empire with or without any restrictions.

The result was that in the preamble of the Declaration of Rights and Grievances of October 14, 1774, the proposition of the American Colonies that the powers of Great Britain over them were legally-limited was based on "the immutable laws of nature, the principles of the English Constitution, and the several charters and compacts."

By the second Address to the King of July 8, 1775, the Americans, in order to make it clear that the dissolution of the British Empire, if it occurred, should not be attributable to their action, formally petitioned the King to use his efforts to have the dispute settled by Imperial conference or, in the last resort, through Imperial arbitration by the British. Crown. When this petition was ignored, the Americans abandoned as impracticable any further attempt to rest their claim on the British. Constitution or the colonial charters, and in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence based themselves solely upon "the law of nature. and of nature's God," asserting that all rightful governmental power everywhere is legally-limited by this universal supreme law, and that hence it was under this universal supreme law that the powers of Great Britain over the Colonies were legally-limited. The preamble of the Declaration contained the steps in the argument for the existence of such a universal supreme law, as those steps were determined by the Continental Congress during their long discussion. This "law of nature. and of nature's God" was declared to have its origin in the common and