The older view of the position of a protectorate according to international law is contained in the decision of Dr. Lushington in the case of the "Leucade" (8 S.T., N.S., 432), to the effect that, the declaration of war by Great Britain against Russia notwith standing, the Ionian islands, which were then under the protecto rate of Great Britain, remained neutral. The king of Great Britain had the right of declaring peace and war. "Such a right is insep arable from protection." But the Ionian States did not become necessarily enemies of the State with which Great Britain was at war. According to one view, the protected State is implicated in the wars to which the protecting State is a party only when the latter has acquired a right of military occupation over the territory of the former. "Cette solution a ete reconnue par la France en 187o, a propos de la guerre contre l'Allemagne pour les Iles Taiti alors soumises a notre protectorat ; elle s'imposerait pour la Tunisie, 1'Annam et Tonkin, et pour le Cambodge, ou les traites nous conferent le droit d'occupation militaire" (M. Despagnet). In the event of hostilities between the protecting and protected States, such hostilities would be regarded not as of the nature of an insurrection, but as a regular war (Trione, By the General Act of the Berlin Conference it was agreed that the acquisition of a protectorate should be notified to the signa tories to the agreement (art. 34), and it has been the practice to give such notice.
Many writers adhere to the doctrine that there is no impair ment of sovereignty of the weaker State by the establishment of a protectorate. They also allege that it is res inter alios acta, an arrangement which concerns only parties to it. But the trend of recent policy and purport of much recent legislation are against this view. The probability is that in such cases Governments and courts applying international law would probably be guided not by technical facts—such, to take the case of British posses sions, as the fact that an order in council permitted appeals to the Judicial Committee—but would look to the facts of the case.
"Any State which undertakes to protect another assumes towards the rest of the world responsibility for its good behaviour—the more complete protection the more extensive the responsibility— and this responsibility involves a duty to interfere if need be" (Coolidge, United States as a World Power, p. 167 ; and to the same effect Liszt, V olkerrecht, p. 31; and Zorn, V olkerrecht, p. 45). The tendency is for protecting States to assert jurisdiction over foreigners within the territories of the protected States (West lake, 187; Jenkyns, p. 176; Ilbert, 3rd ed., ch. 6). Hall remarks (International Law, 8th ed., p. 15o n.) that "all the States repre sented at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, with the exception of Great Britain, maintained that the normal jurisdiction of a pro tectorate includes the right of administering justice over the sub jects of other civilized States." The General Act contemplated measures which are scarcely compatible with the exemption of European traders and adventurers from the local civilized juris diction. He points out that Great Britain—which until lately took the view that a protected State possesses only delegated powers, and that an Eastern State cannot grant jurisdiction over persons who are neither its own subjects nor subjects of the country to which the powers are delegated—had by the Pacific order in council of 1893 and the South African orders in council of 1891-94 asserted jurisdiction over natives and foreign subjects. "The Orders show a gradual increase of the assumption of internal sovereignty" (Jenkyns, 193). The fact is that in the case of pro tectorates over uncivilized or semi-civilized countries a develop ment is inevitable : control quickly hardens into conquest, and international law more and more takes note of this fact. (See also