exclusion of all foreign control or dictation; that its laws should regulate the conditions on which all properties, moveable or immoveable, within its territory, are held, appropriated, or possessed, transferred or transmitted; should determine the state and capacity of the persons resident within its territory; should determine the validity of all contracts and other deeds which have originated therein, and the resulting rights and obligations; and should determine the conditions on which actions or suits at law may be prosecuted. Such appear to be all the powers and rights necessary for, or involved in, the idea of national independence. And to admit that each nation has a sovereignty beyond these powers, dependent entirely on its consent, or its mere will and pleasure, or caprice, is to recognise, not genuine liberty, but licentious rule.

In the preceding observations, we have arrived at the conclusions, that the qualities of laws, as real or personal, do not afford valid grounds for the solution of the ques tions in private international law, arising from the conflictus legum; that the comitas gentium is but a very unstable basis for any system of compulsory law; and that the sovereignty, independence, and welfare of nations do not require recourse to be had to such an unstable basis, or to any other basis, than to those juridical relations and legal principles on which the common law, or internal private jurisprudence of civilised nations, is in a great measure, if not entirely, founded. In the next chapter we shall notice the leading cases in international law in which a conflictus legum usually occurs, or is likely to occur, and the chief juridical considerations and legal principles according to which it may be the duty

of the judges of a civilised nation to administer justice between natives and foreigners, in some cases agreeably to the laws of their own country, in other cases agreeably to the laws of the country to which the foreigners belong.

CHAPTER III.

HOW PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW IS TO BE ENFORCED. CASES OF CONFLICT OF THE LAWS OF SEPARATE INDEPENDENT STATES.

CHAPTER III.

HOW PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW IS TO BE ENFORCED. -CASES OF CONFLICT OF THE LAWS OF SEPARATE INDEPENDENT STATES.

In the preceding observations we trust we have shown-I. That there is nothing in the qualities of laws, designated by the terms personal, real, or mixed, which affords any satisfactory grounds for the solution of the questions involved in the conflictus legum, or for warranting the extension of the laws of one state into or over the territory of another, or for determining of which state the law is to preponderate and predominate over that of the other.

II. That, on the other hand, the independence and sovereignty of states do not entitle them to establish such laws and issue such orders within their own territories with regard to foreigners as they may think fit, in the event of their having intercourse with foreign nations for commercial or other purposes; that mere comitas, courtesy, or convenience, dependent on the will or caprice of nations, cannot become the basis of any valid compulsory right; that, so far as not founded solely on consent, the basis of private international law must be sought in other more stable and onerous considerations than courtesy or convenience, and can only be found in legal or judicial considerations, such as those on which the internal jurisprudence or private law of states rests.