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I took him out airing yesterday in the middle of the day for an hour, but to-day he has had some physic. Lord Gower and I were a long while together at Whitehall; we both agreed that, re bus sic stantibus, it seems impossible that you should stay in Ireland. Hare informs me that they do not mean to remove you.
Every fresh intrigue of Sofia with Vienna confirmed Belgrade in its view of the vital necessity for retaining the Vardar Valley. The hoary argument that "circumstances alter cases," appeared anew in the garb of the Bismarckian theory that all treaties are subject to the provision "rebus sic stantibus" a theory which many great international lawyers have unhesitatingly endorsed.
The national State may for the time being limit its absolute sovereignty by international agreements, but any such agreements are only conditional and temporary—rebus sic stantibus. No national State can make international agreements which are binding for the future. The time must always come when the scrap of paper has to be torn asunder.
"Hii duo, bono deorum auspicio, mare meridionale sulcantes, a littore non longe evagantes, superato circulo equinoctiali, in alterum orbem excepti stint. Ubi ipsis stantibus orientem versus, umbra ad meridiem et dextram projiciebatur. Aperuere igitur sua industria, alium orbem hactenus nobis incognitum et multis annis, a nullis quam Januensibus, licet frustra temptatum."
Every treaty or promise made by a state, Treitschke holds, is to be understood as limited by the proviso rebus sic stantibus. 'A state cannot bind its will for the future over against other states. International treaties are no absolute limitation, but a voluntary self-limitation of the state, and only for such time as the state may find to be convenient.
But he was never forgiven the admission, even by German jurists, who argued that treaties were only binding rebus sic stantibus, while the conditions in which they were signed remained substantially the same; and Germans had long cast covetous eyes on the Congo State, the possession of which, they contended, was inconsistent with Belgium's legal immunity from attack in Europe.
They are only binding, rebus sic stantibus, as long as conditions remain the same—as long as it is in the interest of the allies to keep them; for nothing can compel a State to act against its own interest, and there is no alliance or bond in the world which can subsist if it is not based on the mutual advantage of both parties.
The bond had been signed between the Central Empires and their Bulgarian taskmaster; but the doctrine of rebus sic stantibus was as well understood in Bulgaria as in Prussia, and the treaty would have remained a scrap of paper had Russia expelled the German invaders or Britain broken the barrier at the Dardanlles.
There must be no self-deception on the point that political arrangements have only a qualified value, that they are always concluded with a tacit reservation. Every treaty of alliance presupposes the rebus sic stantibus; for since it must satisfy the interests of each contracting party, it clearly can only hold as long as those interests are really benefited.
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