ART. I. -- THE DUTIES PRESCRIBED BY THE LOVE OF ONE NATION FOR ANOTHER.
106. Nations are bound in justice to respect the independence and the territory of other nations, and to put no obstacle to their perfection. -- A nation as such lives in virtue of its own independence; to deprive it of this is to cause its death politically. So, to violate its territory is to violate its right of property, a right more sacred in a nation than in an individual. Lastly, to foment discord in the bosom of another people and to propagate vice or error in it, is also opposed to the law of nations.
107. Nations ought in benevolence to aid one another, but only in so far, however, as will not injure themselves. -- The duties of benevolence bind nations no less than individuals. Therefore they ought to aid one another to acquire intellectual and moral perfection, and to offer assistance in civil troubles and public calamities.
ART. II. -- COMMERCE.
108. Commerce is necessary to procure the good which nations ought to wish one another. -- Nature produces different products in each country; therefore, that every country may have all that is necessary or useful to it, the different nations should exchange their products with one another. This exchange not only develops the material prosperity of nations, but also, as experience shows, singularly favors their progress in civilization.{1}
109. Every nation has the right to establish commerce with those nations who may wish to exchange their products with it; it has also the right to prohibit the exportation of its own merchandise or the importation of foreign merchandise and to subject the latter to imports. -- It would consequently be contrary to international law if one nation should arrogate to itself the right to establish commerce to the exclusion of other nations. It would also be contrary to international law if one nation should be denied its right of prohibiting the importation or the exportation of merchandise and of subjecting them to various taxes. This right has its foundation in the independence of the nation and in its duty of warding off whatever may injure its material or moral well-being.
ART. III. -- TREATIES AND THE RIGHT OF EMBASSY.
110. Treaties are contracts between nations, and are subject to the same laws as contracts between individuals. -- Treaties are valid only in so far as their object and end are conformed to justice and good order; they are dissolved by the same causes that remove the obligation of contracts between individuals. Treaties are equal or unequal according as the terms are equivalent or not. They are personal or real according as they directly and primarily regard the ruler himself or the State.
111. The right of embassy is necessary to preserve the relations that should exist among nations. -- Peoples and their rulers cannot preserve the relations which they should have with one another without the aid of persons to represent them; therefore the right of embassy is founded in nature, as are also the relations which the nations should preserve with one another.
112. The principal duty of ambassadors is loyalty; their principal prerogative is inviolability. -- Since the mission of the embassador is to maintain the peaceful relations existing between two nations, he can do nothing that would be a subject of legitimate complaint, and should strive unceasingly to strengthen the bonds that unite them. On the other hand, the nature of his office claims the privilege of inviolability and the liberty of communicating at will with the government that he represents. Hence he is not subject to the nation to which he is sent.
{1} Commerce "develops intelligence by the number and variety of the objects which it examines, the sight of distant places to which, thanks to interchange of commodities, it conducts man by land and sea, by its constant incentive to the intellect to contrive new ways of extending trade, by the mutual communication of minds which it brings about, by contact with diverse manners, whence arise mutual moderation and greater development of resources." Yet care should be taken that the liberty given to commerce have just limits; that the rich and powerful do not oppress the weak and indigent; that occasion be not taken to introduce evil morals and overstock the market with useless articles; that exportation be not excessive. Cf. Liberatore, vol. iii., p. 344.