Professor HUDSON. Judge Loder, the president of the Court, was president of the Supreme Court of The Netherlands. I have known him for a number of years. He is a man of excellent judgment and of wide learning, and the administrative responsibilities of the Court could not be in better hands.

Judge Weiss is from France, a professor of law at the University of Paris. It was my privilege for six months during the Peace Conference to sit next to him at the table. He is a man of overwhelming erudition. He has the confidence of the French Foreign Office. He has the confidence of lawyers throughout Europe, and we in this country often use his book on private international law. I am sure that members of this committee have at times used his book on private international law. It is the leading authority outside of the Anglo-American world.

Lord Finlay I need not mention, because he is known to us as the Lord Chancellor of England, and his opinions are known wherever the common law is studied.

Judge Barbosa has now been succeeded by Judge Pessoa, of Brazil, who took part in the elaboration of the statute of the Court, who has held high office in his country, and who is one of the most respected jurists in South America.

Senator SWANSON. Has he written any books?

Professor HUDSON. Judge Pessoa has written several books, but his writings have been more generally in the legal magazines. Judge Nyholm is not known to me so well personally. I have met him on several occasions. He has taken part in a number of international arbitrations in the past, and is very much respected in his own country and abroad.

Judge Moore is, I think, an outstanding member of the Court, as befits our country.

Judge Bustamante is very well known to American lawyers. He has a large practice in Havana which brings him to various parts of the United States.

Judge Altamira is a professor at Madrid, and one of the leading legal scholars of the Continent of Europe.

Judge Oda, the Japanese jurist, I have known only casually. I know that the Japanese respect him very highly.

Senator SWANSON. Do you know what positions he has held in Japan?

Professor HUDSON. He was a professor at the University of Tokyo.

Judge Anzilotti, of Italy, I know very well, indeed. He is one of the best critical jurists on the Continent of Europe. He is an editor of the Italian Journal of International Law, and his name is known wherever international law is studied. He is widely known as a professor at the University of Rome.

Judge Huber, of Switzerland, has been my friend for a number of years. I think no man on the Continent of Europe holds a higher position in continental scholarship than Max Huber.

Senator SWANSON. What are his attainments as a lawyer? Professor HUDSON. He has been a professor at the University of Zurich.

Senator SWANSON. A professor of law?

Professor HUDSON. A professor of law. He was throughout the war legal adviser to the Swiss Foreign Office, and it was in that connection that I first met him at the Paris Peace Conference. I have dealt with him on various international problems, particularly the questions relating to the Rhine, and I have found him erudite, able, a man of excellent judgment and good sense.

Among the deputy judges I would speak only of Judge Wang, who is interesting to us because I take it that when any of you gentlemen have to use the German code you use Judge Wang's translation of it into English. In other words here is a man schooled in the Chinese law, also a student of our law at Yale University, also a student of the German law at the University of Berlin, who made the standard translation of the German code from German into English.

The first meeting of the Court was held in February, 1922, and at that time the rules of the Court were drawn up and promulgated.... The rules have met with general satisfaction. It is quite possible for the Court to change them, and I think in the future changes undoubtedly will prove necessary, but up to the present time they have worked very well indeed.

Two years ago I was of the opinion that the Court might have very little to do during the early period and I often recited the early history of the Supreme Court of the United States, which, you will recall, met in Philadelphia five times before it had any contested case to hear. It was not until the sixth meeting of the Supreme

Court of the United States that it had a contested case; and yet I think it was a very important thing in the life of our young Republic that the judges should have gone on meeting in Philadelphia every February and every August during 1790, during 1791, and during 1792, whether there was any business to be done or not. So I found satisfaction in that provision in the statute of the Court which requires that the judges meet at The Hague on the 15th day of every June whether there is any business to be done or not. But in the first two years, the Court has had so much business that it was necessary for it to have three extra sessions.

Its first session for the transaction of business after this preliminary session where the rules were framed, was in June, 1922.1

There is the record, gentlemen. In two years, 1922, 1923, nine questions have come before the Court. All nine of them have been carefully deliberated upon, carefully argued by competent counsel. The most eminent lawyers in the world have appeared before the Court. Sir Ernest Pollock, formerly Attorney General of England, appeared before the Court in one of the Polish cases. The bar of the world has received the Court into the judicial system of our time.

What are we then to say?

I think there is no body of lawyers in the world who would like to see the Permanent Court of International Justice go out of existence. I believe there is no bar in the world that does not welcome the Permanent Court of International Justice as a great addition to our machinery for the administration of justice according to law.

The United States has an opportunity not to participate in establishing a court, for that exists to-day through the suffrage of 47 nations. Our present opportunity is merely to give our support, our moral support, our financial support, our official support to an institution that is already established, that is already functioning, and that has already begotten high hopes among the lawyers of the world.

[The major part of Professor Hudson's testimony is contained in a separate pamphlet entitled; The Work of the Permanent Court of International Justice during its First Two Years, by Manley O. Hudson, World Peace Foundation Pamphlets, Vol. VI, No. 6. This study of the eight Advisory Opinions and one Judgment rendered by the Permanent Court may be had on application.]

FROM THE STATEMENT OF EVERETT COLBY, ESQ.

Mr. Chairman, as the hearing is drawing to a close, I should like to take this opportunity of expressing to you, sir, as the chairman of the committee, with various other members of the committee, our appreciation of the courtesy you have shown us here. We have had every opportunity to present our side, and I am sure I speak for every person who has appeared when I express our gratitude and our gratification. . . .

Now I would just like to read into the record, in order to show that some of the best minds we have in the country are perfectly sure that the present electoral system does not endanger us, what Mr. Hughes has said on this subject and what Mr. Root has said on this subject and what Judge Moore has said upon this subject, because I do not suppose we can possibly get better authority than those three men.

I find no insuperable obstacle in the fact that the United States is not a Member of the League of Nations.

Senator PEPPER. That is from Mr. Hughes's letter to the President?

Mr. COLBY. Yes.

The statute of the Court has various procedural provisions relating to the League. But none of these provisions, save those for the election of judges, to which I shall presently refer, are of a character which would create any difficulty in the support of the Court by the United States despite its nonmembership in the League. None of these provisions impair the independence of the Court. It is an establishment separate from the League, having a distinct legal status resting upon the protocol and statute. It is organized and acts in accordance with judicial standards, and its decisions are not controlled or subject to review by the League of Nations.

Then, again:

The practical advantage of the present system of electing judges by the majority votes of the Council and Assembly of the League, acting separately, is quite manifest. It was this arrangement which solved the difficulty heretofore appearing almost insuperable, of providing an electoral system conserving the interests of the powers both great and small. It

would be impracticable, in my judgment, to disturb the essential features of this system. It may also be observed that the members of the Council and Assembly of the League in electing the judges of the Court do not act under the Covenant of the League of Nations, but under the statute of the Court and in the capacity of electors, performing duties defined by the statute. It would seem to be reasonable and practicable, that in adhering to the protocol and accepting the statute, this Government should prescribe as a condition that the United States, through representatives designated for the purpose, should be permitted to participate, upon an equality with other States members of the League of Nations, in all proceedings both of the Council and of the Assembly of the League for the election of judges or deputy judges of the Court or for the filling of vacancies in these offices.

I should like to read what Mr. Root said in his speech before the Association of International Law:

The Court is absolutely independent and subject to no control by the League of Nations or by any other political authority.

Then I wish to read this from Judge Moore:

Much has been said of the relation of the Court to the League, and the statement often is made that it is the League's court, which in a certain sense is true, and that it derives its support from the funds of the League, which is undoubtedly true. But I do not know of such a thing in this world as a self-supporting court. It would place a court in a very unfortunate position to compel it to rely for its support on chance contributions by litigants. We do not consider that our courts lack independence because they are dependent upon legislative appropriations. The Supreme Court of the United States would have to abandon its labors if the Congress should fail to appropriate money for the salaries of the judges; but the court, with cheerful confidence, continues to declare acts of Congress to be invalid where, in the court's opinion, they are not consistent with the Constitution.

My point, Mr. Chairman, is that unless it is obvious that that method of electing the judges is really detrimental to the interests of our country, this resolution should be reported, voted upon by the Senate, and made a treaty of the United States.