Supplementary Reading
165
The subjects of these four very interesting lectures are: (1) The Congress of Westphalia; (2) Systems of Policy;[1] (3) Diplomacy, Past and Present (with much miscellaneous information) ; (4) The Obligation of Treaties.
10. Holland, Studies in International Law.[2]
The following are among the subjects discussed: Gentili; Early Literature of the Law of War (to the second half of the sixteenth century); the Progress towards a written Law of War; Pacific Blockade; Treaty Relations between Russia and Turkey, 1774–1853, with Appendices,[3] on which subject
- ↑ 'The word "System", in the language of politicians, sometimes stands for a system of States, and sometimes for a system of policy. In the first case it signifies a group of States having relations more or less permanent with one another. Thus the North of Europe was said before the time of Richelieu, and less positively afterwards, to form one "system", and the central, western, and southern States to constitute another system. So, again, all the European Powers are often spoken of as composing one great system. In the second case it means either any course of policy whatever—any tolerably uniform mode of acting in political affairs—or such a course of policy as involves combinations, more or less permanent, with foreign Powers. A statesman who habitually avoids engaging his country in foreign alliances has a consistent principle of action, but not a "system" in this latter sense of the word. His principle is to have no system. It is in this latter sense that the word is commonly used by older publicists,' pp. 61–2. It is the sense in which it is used by the author. Cf.: 'Whoever undertakes to write the history of any particular states-system (by which we mean the union of several contiguous states, resembling each other in their manners, religion, and degree of social improvement, and cemented together by a reciprocity of interests), ought, above all things, to possess a right conception of its general character.'—Heeren, A Manual of the Political System of Europe, transl. 1834, i, pp. viii–ix: so, 'the rise of the European political system'; 'the Southern European States-system'; 'the Northern European States-system'.
- ↑ 1898.
- ↑ (1) Treaties between Russia and Turkey, 1774–1853, and (2) showing the relation of the Treaty of Kainardji to the subsequent great treaties.
