It may not be amiss here to suggest the influence which the permanent tribunal is calculated to exercise in the future development of international law. The provision for a permanent bureau or record office, in which the archives shall be kept, is sure to prove a valuable condition for future growth, for the deposit in such bureau of all arbitral decisions will mark the true beginning of what we may call “International Law Reports.” To this bureau the powers undertake to send certified copies of all special arbitration agreements, whether embodied in treaties or otherwise; to it also will be sent the result of all special arbitrations hereafter resorted to, and in it will be deposited the papers, pleadings, and other documents, and especially the decisions of the permanent court, as well as those of any special courts which may hereafter be created from time to time. These archives will thus furnish a wealth of material not locked up or available only by jurists of the particular state where they may happen to be situated, as has too often been the case heretofore, but accessible alike to the great text writers and commentators of all nations. The criticisms and opinions of eminent text writers have heretofore been of great value in the improvement of international law, and under these new and more favorable conditions their influence should be even more beneficial in the future. To the works of text writers will in future be added the able discussions of counsel and the learned opinions of judges handed down in writing, with the reasons upon which they are founded.[Q] Where rules and usages are becoming obsolete or obviously hostile to the growth of opinion, international judges may feel themselves bound for a time by them and give their decisions accordingly, but they may embody in their written decisions an _obiter dictum_ which shall prove the death knell of the old rule and the establishment of a healthier one. Many are the wholesome changes that have thus been wrought in English “judge-made law” as the direct result of learned and convincing _obiter dicta_. [Q] For an admirable example, see the published proceedings of the Paris Tribunal in the Venezuelan case. The interest which will thus be stimulated in the whole subject of international law will promote its study in all nations. Hitherto this branch of legal education has been rather slighted; not being regarded as essential to the ordinary practitioner, it has been neglected for the petty provisions of some state code or involved corporation law, but the influences already at work in favor of a more thorough and scholarly study of this branch will be effectively aided under the new conditions.