The special committee upon the subject, of which M.Fauchille is _Rapporteur_, is still sitting, and the topic will doubtless be further debated at the session of the Institut, which will this year be held at Oxford.

No success has attended efforts to pass resolutions in favour of any interference with the employment of _aeronefs_ in time of war, such as was proposed by The (now discredited) Hague Declaration, prohibiting the throwing of projectiles and explosives from airships.

With reference to the use of these machines in time of peace, the debates have all along revealed a fundamental divergence of opinion between the majority of the Institut and a minority, comprising those English members who have made known their views.

Both parties are agreed that aerial navigation must submit to some restrictions, but the majority, starting from the Roman law dictum, "Naturali iure omnium communia sunt _aer_, aqua profluens, et mare," would always presume in favour of freedom of passage.

The minority, on the other hand, citing sometimes the old English saying, "Cuius est solum eius est usque ad coelum," hold that the presumption must be in favour of sovereignty and ownership as applicable to superimposed air space.
It is hardly necessary to observe that neither of the maxims just mentioned was formulated with reference to problems which have only presented themselves within the last few years.