NOTES. 205 Secondly, these war premiums of insurance were always recognized by our government as valid claims, and hence the United States was not bound as between its citizens by the decision of the Geneva tribunal as to inter- national law. The court saw, as all must see, that the idea of a pure gift as to these special payments was absurd and untenable unless the United States had been in the position at Geneva of arguing a groundless claim. Was the claim property in any sense of the word ? How does the court avoid calling all payments from the $15,000,000 mere gifts? It says, though no one had a strict right or claim on the fund, still there was a " possibility of payment," "an expectancy of interest in the fund." The claims having been recognized at Geneva by the United States as valid might become valuable if the United States chose to pay. "They were then rights growing out of property; rights, it is true, not enforceable until after an act of Congress," but still rights of property, and hence they would pass on assignment. It is worth while noticing that here we have a right which is a mere pos- sibility of value, a right which cannot be enforced ; i. <?., the owner of which is remediless, and yet which is still held to be property. Analogous to this kind of right are the rights of a bondholder against a State. He has no remedy against it in case of failure to pay, but it is a true right of property. So perhaps the payment of the simplest debt of a sovereign State is a matter depending purely in its will, and yet a property right vested in the one to whom the payment, though uncertain, is due. Right to compel a College to confer a Degree. — An interest- ing case has recently come up before the New York Supreme Court, which decides in brief that a man who has obeyed all the college rules and paid all the term bills has a contract right to his degree. The com- plainant in People ex rel. Cecil v. Bellevue Hospital Medical College 1 pe- tioned for a writ of mandamus "to compel the respondent to admit him to the final examination, and if he passed a suitable examination to give him a degree." The court held that the college catalogue, the circulars issued, the course of study, and qualifications and fees specified, constituted an offer, and that "when a student matriculates under circumstances as set forth above it is a contract between the college and himself that if he complies with the terms therein prescribed he shall have the degree which is the end to be obtained. The corporation cannot take a student's money, allow him to remain and waste his time, . . . and then arbitrarily refuse to confer that which they promised ; namely, the degree." This seems to be laying it down clearly that a college cannot withhold a degree from one who has performed the requisite conditions ; and that the coveted A.B. or M.D. is not merely a gratuitous favor. The remedy in this case would seem at first peculiar, for a writ of man- damus is usually never granted in a case where there is any discretion to act or not to act in those against whom it is brought, i. <?., unless their duty in the matter is absolute and clear. But the court here held that an " arbi- trary refusal is no exercise of discretion at all, but merely a wilful violation of the duties which they have assumed." 1 Vol. XIV. New York Supplement, May, 1891.
