Quarterly Notes
| Published date | 01 July 1931 |
| Date | 01 July 1931 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X3100400313 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
QUARTERLY NOTES
THE
SPANISH
REpUBLIC
RECENT
events in Spain have brought about a change in the form of Govern-
ment in that country in a fashion so sudden and so dramatic as to attract the
attention of the whole world and make us all wonder how it can have been
accomplished without bloodshed or even serious disorder.
To
the British
public these events have had an almost romantic appeal on account of the
special associations of Alfonso
XIII
with Great
Britain;
and many people
have admired greatly the courage with which he has dealt with the difficulties
of the past few years and the dignity with which he made his exit.
In
the
result there is a new form of
Government-a
Republic-in
Spain, and His
Majesty's Governments in the United Kingdom and the Dominions have,
according to the official statement in The Times of
zznd
April, formally
notified the Minister of State in Madrid that
they'
recognize the Provisional
Government of the Spanish Republic.'
The
necessity for recognition of a new form of Government which is
established in a foreign State after a revolution arises from the fact that
until other States have recognized the new power thus set up there is in
international law no way of establishing diplomatic relations between the
new Government and other civilized States.
It
is entirely amatter for the
discretion of every country concerned whether it should or should not give
this recognition. Everything, or nearly everything, depends on the stability
of the new Government which the revolution has
put
at the head of the
State. According to Oppenheim, International Law (Vol. I, p. 153), recog-
nition is, in fact, nothing else than the declaration of other States that they
are ready to deal with a certain individual or group of individuals as the
highest organ of a particular State, without prejudice to the question whether
such individual or group ought or ought not to be considered the legitimate
head or Government of that State. Sometimes the recognition is delayed
for quite a long time after the events which set up the new Government.
For example, when King Alexander of Servia was murdered and King Peter
succeeded him, Great Britain declined to recognize the new sovereign and
severed diplomatic relations with
Servia;
and it was not until the persons
implicated in the murder of King Alexander had retired some time later
that Great Britain thought fit, in the exercise of its discretion, to recognize
the new king as the head of the Government of what is now called Serbia.
THE
NATURE
OF A
CRIME.
As every police officer is painfully aware, no year passes that does not bring
with it a harvest of new statutory offences. Great Britain is not alone in this
respect.
The
legislatures of many countries are now dominated by the
spirit of benevolent interference with individual liberty of action in the
supposed interests of the community as a whole. Many of the offences that
are created are not crimes in the popular
sense;
conviction does not make
one a "criminal.' A person who is fined five pounds for refusing to fill in
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