James Brown Scott to invoke more generally its offices, Mr. Scott on his return from The Hague instituted, with others interested in the cause of arbitration, a propaganda in favor of the establishment of a court of arbitral justice or else the extension of the jurisdiction of the court of prize to international controversies in gen eral. The medium of giving publicity to the arguments in favor of this course was the American Society for the Judi cial Settlement of International Dis putes, which was organized in 1910, and of which Mr. Scott was made the president. The Society has not confined itself solely to the particular object which called it into being, but through its public meetings and the distribution of literature has done much to diffuse knowledge of the progress being made in arbitration and to arouse public opinion favorable to the more general acceptance of the principle by all govern ments. Mention was made of the important contribution to the history of inter national arbitration which was made by Mr. Scott in his work on the two Hague Conferences. The year following the publication of that work he elabo rated his idea in a lecture delivered at Johns Hopkins University and in an address at the Lake Mohonk Confer ence on International Arbitration. Up to the time that Mr. Scott made public the result of his researches, international arbitration had been considered, I be lieve without exception, a degenerate type of judicial procedure derived from the more perfect system of justice insti tuted by civilized states for the settle ment of disputes between individuals. This derivation of international courts of arbitration Mr. Scott denies, showing that it is based upon a misapprehension of the facts, or at least upon erroneous conclusions. Instead of being a degen
173
erate type of institution, a crude imita tion of the process of national courts of justice, he shows that the course being pursued for the establishment of an international judiciary is following the identical lines of development which may be traced in the history of Rome, and that by the same steps by which the Roman courts came into being, international courts are being evolved and are bound to develop the same permanency and efficiency which char acterized the judicial system of the Roman Empire. This is the assertion which Mr. Scott makes as a result of his studies and which he proceeds to demonstrate. He points .out that in the primitive community the mode of settling dis putes was by self-redress: "that in the early period of Roman history there did not exist institutions which, without a misuse of terms, could be called courts of justice"; and that there was no public machinery for the settlement of controversies of a civil nature between Roman citizens. Through the operation of usage and custom, however, the primi tive method in regard to disputes as to land was superseded by their submis sion to a stranger, an arbiter, for settlement. By agreement the parties bound themselves to comply with the decision of the arbiter chosen by them, and failure to do so operated as an authorization for the other party to resort to self-redress as matter of right. "The agreement to submit was contractual, the appointment of the arbiter was voluntary, and his decision was enforced by the individual litigant, not by the power of the state." This primitive condition of the settlement of differences between Roman citizens Mr. Scott declares to be analogous to the condition existing prior to 1899 among civilized states, which up to that
