The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-04-25
SECRETARY ROOT
 DISCUSSES LAW Public Opinionls Often Stronger Than the Law
  lNTERNEfIONAL DEAL ILNGS aua4 MT. Root shovit,1fhat Relations With -.sn Nations Lead To Estab- lishment of Rules For
 Mutual Guidance.

Washington, April 24.-The second an- International Law was begun at the New Willard hotel here today. A programme of discussion has been arranged which will keep the hundred or more members of the society engaged until tomorrow night, when the meeting is to end with banquet at which the climax of ora tory will be reached.
 Secretary Root, president of the society, opened the meeting with an address on the Sanctions of International Law" in which he took occasion to discuss most interestingly the developing force of pub lie opinion in international affairs He said:
 "One accustomed to the administration of municipal lawa who turns his atten- tion for the first time to the discussion of practical questions arising between na- tions and dependent upon the rules of international law must be struck by a difference between the two systems which materially affects the intellectual process and involved in every discussion, and which is apparently fundamental.
 sThe proofs and arguments adduced by the municipal lawyer are addressed to the object of setting in motion certain legal machinery which will result in judicial judgment to be enforced by the entire power of the state over ltigants, subject to it's jurisdiction and control.
 ''When the international law, on the other hand, proceeds to seek the estab- lshment of rights or the redress of wrongs in a concrete case, he has ap- parently no objective point to which he can address his proofs or argument, ex- eept the conscience and sense of justice of the opposing party to the controversy. In only rare, exceptional and peculiar cases do the conclusions of the nterna- tional laws, however clearly demonstrat- ed. have behind them the compulsory ef- feet of possible war.
 Constant Discussions.
 Tn the vast majority of practical ques- tions arising under the rules of inter- national law there does not appear on the surface to be any reason why either party should abandon it's own contention or yield against its own interest to the ar guments of the other side. This apparent absence of sanction for the enforcement of the rules of international law has led great authorities to deny that those rules are entitled to be called law at all and this apparent hopeessness of finality car ries to the mind which limits it's eonsid- eration to the procedure in each particular case d certain sense of futility of argu- ment. Nevertheless all the foreign offices of the civilized world are continually discussing with each other questions of international law both public and pri- vate cheerfully and hopefully marshaling facts, furnishing evidence and presenting arguments and building up records de. signed to show that the rules of interna- tional law require such and such things to be done or such and such things to be left undone. And in countless cases na- tions are yielding to such arguments and shaping their conduct against their own apparent interests in the particular cases under discussion in obedience to the rules which are shown to be applicable.
 Careful consideration seems to lead to