rising resort to
extreme measures for the prevention of aerial trespass under suspicious
circumstances, has been passed through all its stages, was amply
justified by the urgent need for such legislation, which Russia seems to
have been the first to recognise. The task of those responsible for
framing regulations for the working of the new Act will be no easy one.
They will be brought face to face with practical difficulties, such as
led to the adjournment of the Paris Conference of 1910.

In the meantime, it may interest your readers to have some clue to what
has taken place, with reference to the more theoretical aspects of the
questions involved, in so competent and representative a body as the
Institut de Droit International. The Institut has had the topic under
consideration ever since 1900, more especially at its sessions for the
years 1902, 1906, 1910, and 1911. In the volumes of its "Annuaire" for
those years will be found not only the text of the resolutions adopted
on each occasion, together with a summary account of the debates which
preceded their adoption, but also, fully set out, the material which had
been previously circulated for the information of members, in the shape
of reports and counter-reports from inter-sessional committees, draft
resolutions, and such critical observations upon these documents as had
been received by the secretary. The special committee upon the subject,
of which M. Fauchille is _Rapporteur_, is still sitting, and the topic
will doubtless be further debated at the session of the Institut, which
will this year be held at Oxford. No success has attended efforts to
pass resolutions in favour of any interference with the employment of
_aeronefs_ in time of war, such as was proposed by The (now discredited)
Hague Declaration, prohibiting the throwing of projectiles and
explosives from airships. With reference to the use of these machines in
time of peace, the debates have all along revealed a fundamental
divergence of opinion between the majority of the Institut and a
minority, comprising those English members who have made known their
views. Both parties are agreed that aerial navigation must submit to
some restrictions, but the majority, starting from the Roman law dictum,
"Naturali iure omnium communia sunt _aer_, aqua profluens, et mare,"
would always presume in favour of freedom of passage. The minority, on
the other hand, citing sometimes the old English saying, "Cuius est
sol