1 For figures on the value of such holdings, see Clunet, , Journal du Droit International, 1915, p. 286 Google Scholar, 1917, p. 496; Strasburger Post, July 18, 28, 1917, in Facts about the War, Paris Chamber of Commerce, August, 1917. See, also, Eceard, Biens et Intérêts Français en Allemagne, 1917, pp. 26–27, and Bruneau, l’Allemagne en France, 1914.

2 In the case of Krupp Aktien Gesellschaft (1916 W. N. 234), Mr. Justice Younger held that British creditors of enemy aliens were not entitled to interest on such debts. Thereupon the rules issued in pursuance of the Act were promptly amended so as to allow interest in such cases. Solicitors’ Journal, Vol. 60, p. 534; Law Times, July 1, 1916, pp. 150–151.

3 Text of the Act in Pulling’s Manual of Emergency Legislation, Supp. II, pp. 19–27, and Baty and Morgan, War, Its Conduct and Legal Results, pp. 512–523.

4 His powers were judicially interpreted in the ease of Hazelberg Aktien Gesellschaft, W. N. (1916), and are analyzed in the Law Times of November 4, 1916, pp. 141–142.

5 It will be noted that no application to the courts for an order to wind up such business was required. This feature of the law is criticized by the Solicitors’ Journal and Weekly Reporter, Vol. 60, p. 216. See also the Law Quarterly Review, Vol. 32, p. 249.

6 Compare Valéry, , “De la Condition en France des Bessortissants des Puissances Ennemis,” Revune Général de Droit International Public, 1916, pp. 374 Google Scholar ff., and Clunet, Journal du Droit International, 1916, p. 7.

7 See Valéry, article cited, who emphasizes the character of the French measures as a legitimate act of reprisal for the German pillage and confiscation of private property in France; also Fauchille, , Les Attentats Allemands contre les Biens et contre les Personnes en Belgique et en France, ibid., 1915, pp. 257 Google Scholar ff., and Reulos, Manuel des Séquestres, p. 2. In fact, however, the German Government had only excluded from access to its courts enemy subjects domiciled outside the Empire. Frenchmen domiciled within the Empire were free to sue in–the German courts.

8 The Germans complained that the policy of sequestration adopted by the French courts was illegal, but Reulos (Les Séquestres et la Qestion des Biens des Sujets Ennemis en France, Clunet, 1917, pp. 24 ff.), shows that this policy was entirely in accord with the established practice of the French courts in dealing with abandoned property or property held by persons who for reasons of public policy should not be left in control of it.

9 The various circulars and decrees relating to the matter may be found in Reulos, Manuel des Séquestres; Dalloz, Guerre de 1917; and a collection entitled Législation de la Guerre de 1914 (Librairie de Soc. du Recueil Sirey). See also Signorel, , Le Statut des Sujets Ennemis (1916), pp. 128 Google Scholar ff.

10 Text in Reulos, pp. 42–43, and Clunet, 1915, pp. 419 ff.

11 Troimaux, Séquestres et Séquestrés, p. 3.

12 Text in Reulos, pp. 41–42.

13 The law of January 22, 1916, provided that French holders or managers of enemy property should upon their request be considered as sequestrators of the property in their possession, and such property should be regarded as under their care. They were “sequestrators by law” as contra–distinguished from “judicial sequestrators” who were appointed by the courts.

14 Text in Reulos, pp. 44–45.

15 Ibid., p. 46.

16 Text in Reulos, pp. 47–48.

17 See a circular of the Minister of Justice of October 14, 1914.

18 See Troimaux, pp. 87 ff. and 105 ff.

19 Reulos, p. 231.

20 See Reulos, pp. 32 ff., for the text. See Troimaux, pp. 147 ff., for a discussion of the nature and purposes of the law. Troimaux details some of the ingenious ruses adopted by German houses and property owners to avoid the sequestration measures (pp. 117 ff.).

21 This restricted view of their powers was affirmed by the French courts in many cases. Many of these decisions may be found in the Journal du Droit International, edited by M. Clunet, in Eeulos, op. cit., Part III, and in Troimaux, op. cit., pp. 55 ff. The two latter treatises contain analyses and comment on the French decisions.

22 Decision of the Tribunal of Oran, Clunet, 1916, p. 967.

23 Circular of the Minister of Justice, November 3, 1914. Text in Eeulos, pp. 63 ff.

24 Circular of November 14, 1914, Reulos, pp. 74 ff.

25 Reulos, 1915, p. 1078.

26 Text in Reulos, pp. 100 ff.

27 Reulos, p. 51.

28 See, e.g., the decision of the Cour de Paris of February 27, 1917, Clunet, 1917, p. 1457.

29 The French text of the German decree of August 7th may be found in Reulos, p. 478. The French seem to have been under the impression that the German decree closed the German courts to all Frenchmen whether domiciled within or without the Empire. In fact, as stated above, it applied only to those domiciled outside the Empire.

30 See the Norddeutsche Zeitung of November 30, 1914. The same paper, in its issue of April 14, 1917, published an official notice which complained that from the outset the French had sequestrated not only the property of German commercial enterprises, but also the goods of private individuals; that the French policy was ruinous and wasteful, and that important enterprises in which Germans held an interest had been put up for sale in a lump and sold to the French partners at nominal prices. M. Reulos, in Clunet’s Journal, 1917, pp. 26 ff., denies the German charges.

The above and other similar charges in respect to the treatment of German property in France are made by Hans Reichel, of Zurich, in the Juristisehe Wochenschrift of Berlin for May 1, 1915, p. 471. There is a French translation of his article in Clunet, 1917, pp. 489 ff., by M. Dreyfus, who likewise denies the German charges.

31 In view of the fact, however, that the French policy of sequestration was not inaugurated until October, 1914, it is difficult to see how the German ordinance of September 4th can be defended as an act of reprisal against the French measures of sequestration. Compare an article entitled Les Séquestres des Biens des Sujets Mnnemis en Allemagne, Clunet, 1916, pp. 1546 ff., and an article by Reulos, Hid., 1917, pp. 26 ff.

32 The text of this and other decrees, laws, circulars of instruction, etc., may be found in a German collection entitled Die Kriegs Notgesetze, Sammlung der Wiehtigen Gesetze, Verordnungen und Erlasse, published by Carl Heyman, Berlin. See Vol. I, pp. 137–139, for the text of the above decree. The French text of this and other decrees relating to the treatment of enemy property in Germany may be found in Reulos, op. cit., pp. 478 ff. See also Clunet, 1917, pp. 77–8, and Kccard, Biens et Intérêts Français.

The number of decrees and circulars issued by the German Government in respect to enemy property and enterprises was very large. Clunet (1917, p. 385) gives a list of seventeen such decrees and ordinances. An analysis of the more important of them may be found in Senate Document No. 107, 65th Cong. 1st sess., entitled “Trading with the Enemy,” by Theo. H. Thiesing, of the Library of Congress.

33 German text in Die Kriegs Notgesetze, Zweites heft, p. 1; French text in Reulos, p. 486, Eccard, p. 238 and Clunet, 1915, pp. 80–81; 1916, p. 324; and 1917, pp. 266 ff. German creditors of enemy subjects were entitled to institute proceedings in the courts by way of execution against property belonging to the latter and which had been placed under sequestration. See a decision of the Oberlandesgericht of Colmar, May 12, 1915, Soergel, Kriegsrechtspreehung und Kriegsrechtslehre, p. 115, and a decision of the Landgericht of Berlin, March 22, 1915, ibid., p. 115. Controllers of enemy firms could sue in the name of the firm in respect to its affairs. Ibid., p. 206. As to the powers of managers of enemy firms, see a decision of the Prussian Kammergericht in May, 1916, text in Clunet, 1917, pp. 266 ff.; also Clunet, 1917, pp. 480 ff.

34 It will be seen that enemy interest, and not the domicile of the French shareholders or partners, was made the test. It was immaterial whether the latter had their domicile in German, enemy or neutral territory.

35 French writers have complained of the German procedure of dissolving mixed companies, a majority of the stock of which was owned by French partners, this upon the request of a single German partner. See the opinion of the Hamburg Landgericht of July 1, 1915, in Soergel, Kriegsrechtsprechung und Kriegsrechtslehre, p. 25, where a house of trade composed of three partners, of whom two were English and the third German, was dissolved upon the petition of the German partner. The Tribunal of the Seine declined to order a dissolution in a similar case. Reulos, La Séquestration et la Gestion des Mens des Sujets Ennemis en France, Clunet, 1917, pp. 38–39. See also an article from the Berlin Tageblatt of August 18, 1916. (French translation in Clunet, 1917, p. 492.)

36 Text in Kriegs Notgesetze, Heft 2, p. 3. A detailed analysis of the abovementioned ordinances, with general comment on the German policy in respect to the treatment of enemy property, may be found in a series of articles entitled Régime Juridique des Biens Ennemis en Allemagne in Clunet, 1917, pp. 385 ff. and 875 ff., by Giesker–Zeller of Zurich. There is also a review and defense of German policy in an article by Dr. Haber, of Leipzig, in the Juristische Wochenschrift of April 15, 1916. (French translation in Clunet, 1916, pp. 448 ff.)

37 French text in Clunet, 1917, pp. 1523 ff.

38 Text in Eeulos, pp. 491–3, and Eccard, pp. 261–263. In November, 1917, the provisions of this decree were extended to apply to the property and claims of American citizens.

39 Text of the decree in Clunet, 1916, pp. 682–684; in Huberich and Speyer, German Legislation in the Occupied Territories of Belgium, 2nd series, pp. 98–100; and in Eccard, op. cit., pp. 247–249.

40 Text in Bulletin Officiel des Lois et Arrêtés, September 13, 1916. English translation in New York Times, November 14, 1916.

41 International Law Notes, May, 1917, p. 73.

42 In this connection, attention may be called to a decision rendered by the Reichsgericht on October 26, 1914, which said: “The German law of nations does not admit the view of certain foreign codes according to which war from the economic point of view must be extended to the subjects of the enemy states. It starts from the contrary principle that war is made solely against the enemy state as such and that the subjects of an enemy state are assimilated from the civil point of view to nationals in the same measure as they were before the war, except in so far as otherwise exceptionally provided for by law.” The court admitted, however, that this principle might be derogated from by exception as a measure of reprisal. Text in Soergel, Reohtssprechung, p. 75; also quoted by Cufti, in an article entitled De la Condition des Sujets Ennemis selon la Législation et la Jurisprudence Allemandes, in Clunet, 1915, pp. 785 ff. See also Clunet, 1916, p. 1131, and 1917, p. 456.

43 Commenting on the German legislation in respect to the treatment of enemy aliens, an English writer in the Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation (January, 1915, p. 54), remarks: “Suffice it to say that the emergency provisions taken as a whole are creditable to Germany and its jurisprudence. They exhibit no spirit of vindictiveness. If there is retaliation, it is only resorted to where the rights conceded by Germany are refused by us. The disabilities and prohibitions, in a word, are no more than reasonable safeguards which a belligerent may exact in the presence of this hideous anomaly—War.”

44 The character of German and French measures is contrasted in M. Eccard’s Biens et Intérêts François en Allemagne et en Alsace-Lorraine (1917).

45 Clunet, 1915, pp. 1078–1079; 1916, p. 1547.

46 New York Times, October 22, 1917.

47 Printed in Supplement to this JOURNAL, January, 1918.

48 Whenever the board refused to grant a license, the Alien Property Custodian took charge of the business and managed, operated or liquidated its affairs. A large number of licenses appear to have been granted with a view to liquidation under the management and control of the Custodian. The power to license insurance companies was delegated by the President to the Treasury Department.

49 This power was delegated by the President to the Treasury Department and in pursuance of this authority an order was issued by the Department on November 26, 1917, prohibiting all enemy and ally of enemy insurance companies, except those engaged in the business of life insurance, from doing business in the United States. Life insurance companies were permitted to carry out their existing contracts, but were forbidden to write new business. The affairs of all others were wound up and liquidated. By an executive order of November 12, 1918, the Custodian was given authority to take over the assets and affairs of all enemy insurance companies then in the process of liquidation. It was announced that their stock would be sold at public auction. Already, on July 14, 1917, the President had issued a proclamation prohibiting companies engaged in the business of marine and war risk insurance from continuing their business, and declaring that their existing contracts should be suspended during the period of the war. The purpose of the measure was to prevent information regarding the movement of American vessels from reaching Germany through the agents of such companies, who had a right to inspect all vessels upon which they carried insurance.

50 See a report of the Custodian to the President, in the Official Bulletin, January 26, 1918.

51 Text of the order in the Official Bulletin, March, 1918.

52 The law was interpreted to apply to property in the United States owned or controlled by any and all persons residing or domiciled in the territory of the enemy or ally of an enemy, even when the owner was an American citizen. In a number of instances vast properties owned by American citizens of German origin, who at the time were in Germany, were taken over by the Custodian. Likewise, the property holdings of a number of wealthy American women who had married German or Austrian subjects were taken over. In the former case, the domicile of the owner was taken as the test of the liability of his property to sequestration; in the latter case the citizenship of the owner was made the test.

By an executive order of February 5, 1918, German and Austro-Hungarian subjects who had been interned and were in the custody of the War Department were declared to be “enemies” within the sense of the Trading with the Enemy Act. Their property was therefore subject to seizure by the Alien Property Custodian. By an executive order of May 31, 1918, the Custodian was authorized to take over property in the United States of enemies interned in England and France, of persons who since April 6 were guilty of disseminating enemy propaganda, of persons whose names were on the enemy trading list, and of persons who at any time since April 4, 1914, had been resident within enemy territory.

52a Down to July 31, 1918, $42,970,027 of such funds had been invested in Liberty Bonds (Off. Bui., August 6, 1918). The total amount of property taken over by the Custodian was valued at more than $700,000,000.

53 Sec. 12, paragraph 4.

54 Compare the New York Times, March 12, 1918.

55 In November, 1917, the Custodian gave public assurances in consequence of a report that heavy withdrawals by Austrians and Hungarians of their bank deposits were contemplated, that the government had no intention of seizing such funds and that there was no thought of confiscating or dissipating the property of enemy aliens residing in the United States. New York Times, November 14 and December 10, 1917.

55a In June, 1918, the Custodian appeared before a committee of Congress and urged that title to enemy property should be vested in him in order that he might convey a clear title to property sold, and thus remove the possibility of its being returned to the original owners. But it does not appear that the authority was given.

56 New York Times, March 19, 1918. Already, in October, 1917, the German decrees in respect to compulsory notification and administration of enemy-owned property were extended to apply to American property in the Empire. New small in comparison with German holdings in the United States, the proportion being estimated at about 100 to 1 in favor of the United States. The value of American owned property in Germany was estimated at about $14,000,000.

56a Text in N. Y. Times, October 18, 1918.

57 Richard, King, Solicitors’ Journal and Weekly Reporter, December 19, 1914, p. 143 Google Scholar.

58 London Weekly Times, September 8, 1916.

59 The text of the protest of the bar may be found in an article by Professor Valéry, entitled La Condition des Biens des Sujets Ennemis et le Barreau de Milan, in Clunet, 1917, pp. 893 ff. German and Austrian property holdings in Italy were enormous, and included many villas of princes, vast landed estates, and numerous financial houses, industrial enterprises, etc.

60 When Venice became a part of the Italian Kingdom in 1866, the Italian Government allowed the Austro–Hungarian Government to retain possession of the palace. According to the Italian view, the seizure of the palace in 1916 was simply the resuming possession of the property which the Austro-Hungarian Government had been allowed to occupy merely by sufferance. The Spanish Embassy, which had taken charge of Austro-Hungarian interests in Italy after the breaking off of diplomatic relations between the two countries and which now occupied the palace, was notified at the time the above-mentioned decree was issued to remove the archives by October 31st.

61 The Austrian Papal representative had left Rome at the time.

62 See an article by B. L. in Clunet, 1917, pp. 139 ff.

63 Pulling, Manual of Emergency Legislation, pp. 226–236; Baty and Morgan, op. cit., pp. 546–550.

64 See an article by John Cutter, K. C, in the Solicitors’ Journal and Weekly Reporter for November 14, 1914, p. 54 Google Scholar. See also the issue of the same journal for November 7, 1914, p. 39.

65 British Patent Journal, February 21 and May 9, 1917. With a view to safeguarding British capital invested in the manufacture of articles controlled by German patents, it is said that the British Government gave assurances to licensees that they would be allowed to continue to exploit such patents after the close of the war and until their expiration. See an interview by Mr. A. E. Parker, a New York patent attorney, in the New York Times, April 14, 1917, and an interview by Mr. Lawrence Langner, ibid., April 13, 1917.

66 But by a proclamation of December 28, 1916, the permission thus granted to pay fees of this kind in enemy countries was restricted so as to apply only to subjects of Germany or her allies and to neutral persons. A British subject, therefore, domiciled in Germany could not avail himself of this privilege. See Huberich in the Solicitors’ Journal and Weekly Reporter, Vol. 61, p. 180.

67 Text of the law in Reulos, Manuel des Siquestres, pp. 23 ff., and Clunet, 1915, pp. 258 ff. See, also, Théry, , “Emergency Legislation of France,” London Solicitors’ Journal , October 23, 1915, pp. 4–5 Google Scholar. The texts of the laws and ordinances of France, Germany, England and Austria-Hungary relating to the treatment of enemy patents may be found in Clunet, 1915, pp. 960–978.

68 Huberich, op. oit.

69 The Supreme Court of Japan, however, seems to have held that the outbreak of war between Germany and Japan suspended the convention as between those two Powers. Text of the decision in Clunet, 1916, p. 653.

70 The text of this decision, so highly creditable to the Reiohsgericht, may be found in Soergel, Kriegsrechtssprechung und Kriegsrechtslehre, p. 75; French translation in Clunet, 1916, pp. 1314 ff.

71 French text in Clunet, 1915, pp. 962 ff. and 1916, pp. 105–106.

72 Some instances are mentioned in Clunet’s Journal, p. 107, 1916.

73 Clunet, 1917, p. 106. As to Austrian legislation, see Clunet, 1915, pp. 968 ff. In August, 1916, the Austrian Government, “by way of retaliation” against England and France, decreed that patents and trade-marks held by the nationals of these countries might be restricted or abolished by the Minister of Public Works, in the public interest. London Solicitors’ Journal, August 26, 1916, p. 713. According to the press dispatches the Russian Government went to the length of “appropriating” all patents owned by Germans and relating to “war inventions,” and declared all others to be “invalid.”

74 The provisions of the Act applied equally to subjects of governments in alliance with an enemy of the United States.

75 On April 16, 1918, however, the President issued an order directing that no patents or copyrights should in the future be issued to enemy subjects, and the permission given American citizens to apply for patents in enemy countries was revoked. It was stated in October, 1917, that 200 applications for patents from German subjects were on file in the Patent Office, but that action on the same was being deferred until information was received as to what policy Germany was pursuing.

76 The President in turn delegated to the Federal Trade Commission the power thus conferred upon him. See the Executive Order of October 12, 1917, in Supplement to this Journal, January, 1918, p. 51.

77 Le Droit d’Auteur, June 15, 1917, p. 68. The United States, though not a member of the International Copyright Union established under the Berne Convention, is in the anomalous position of enjoying the privileges of the union in consequence of its having entered into reciprocal copyright conventions with practically all the countries which are members. See Howell, , “International Copyright Relations of the United States,” Tale Law Journal, Vol. 17, pp. 348 Google Scholar ff.

78 See an article on the general subject in the Solicitors’ Journal and Weekly Reporter for October 24, 1914, pp. 4 ff. In 1898, the Attorney General of the United States gave an opinion that Spanish subjects’ were not entitled to the privileges of copyright conferred on Spanish subjects by proclamation prior to the outbreak of the war between Spain and the United States. That is, these rights were suspended by the war. H. Docs., 56th Cong., 2nd session, 1900–01, Vol. 99.

79 The text of the Berne Convention may be found in Clunet’s Journal du Droit International, 1887, pp. 780 ff.; the revised convention of 1908 may be found in ibid., 1911, pp. 685 ff.; see also ibid., 1917, p. 791.

80 Trading with the Enemy Act, sec. 10, pars, a and b. In August, 1918, it was announced that the Alien Enemy Property Custodian would henceforth take over the royalties due on copyrighted enemy operas in the United States.

81 Sec. 10, par. g.

82 But certain French publishers complained to the Bureau of the International Union that German publishers in fact were guilty of publishing and offering for sale in Switzerland pirated editions of works upon which French publishers or authors held copyrights in Germany, this in contravention of the terms of the Berne Convention. The Bureau in reply to these protests promised that energetic steps would be taken to prevent the circulation and sale of such publications in Switzerland. See the correspondence relating to the matter, in Clunet, 1916, pp. 551–555.

83 The president of the British Association of Publishers stated that numerous German works copyrighted in England were offered to British publishers for translation and publication. Those who offered them had in most cases not obtained permission from the German authors or publishers. The Association expressed the view that such an appropriation of enemy property rights was contrary to the Berne Convention and would throw discredit upon the British nation, which was then struggling for the maintenance of international obligations. The hope was therefore expressed that every British publisher would refuse to publish any book copyrighted in England by a foreign author unless his consent had been obtained. Clunet, 1916, p. 550.

84 Compare Howell in the Yale Law Journal, Vol. 17, p. 348.