Understanding The Concepts Of State As Formulated By Salmond – Explained!

According to Sir John Salmond a state or political society is an association of human beings established for the attainment of certain ends by certain means. The etuis, according to him, are defence against external enemies or the maintenance of peaceful and orderly relations within the commu­nity itself.

According to Salmond a state without a fixed territory-a-nomadic tribe for example—is perfectly possible, and it may be organized for the fulfillment of the essential functions of government. Such a position is, however, rare and may be disregarded as abnormal.

Salmond, therefore, defines a state with reference to its territory as a society of men established for the maintenance of order and justice within a determined territory by way of force.

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Parker identifies his definition of state with that of Austin as a society, formed in a definite area, receiving the habitual obedience of its members to enable it to enforce its decisions as final at home in the last resort, and resist dictation from abroad, at any rate on most ques­tions. In this view he criticises the definition of stale adopted by Salmond.

In the first place, he says that if enforcement of justice against external and internal enemies be taken as the distinguishing characteristic of a stale, it cannot be differentiated from other societies which also enforce justice externally and internally in their own re­spective spheres of activity commensurate with their physical power.

This criticism is, to say the least, far-fetched. According to Salmond the slate is an association for maintaining order and justice within its boundaries and for defending itself against its neighbours by way of force. It is none of the business of another human association.

In the second place Parker observes that when Salmond conceives of war as an enforcement of justice by one slate against an offending state, the difficulty arises that every state regards its own cause as just. The difficulty is further enhanced by the fact that in case of war between the disputant states, each party to the judge in its own cause, and self-assertion of justice by a violent display of brute force at its command can never, by any stretch of reasoning, be conformable to any standards of justice.

In the third place, according to Parker, Salmond excludes alto­gether the ethical purpose of the stale when he conceives of it as essentially concerned with the enforcement of justice. According to Aristotle a slate originates for the sake of life and exists for the sake of the host life.

The modern conception of a state is that it exists to promote social good on the maximum scale, and for this end has to pursue endless beneficent activities other than mere administration of justice. Salmond’s definition of state is not in tune with the modern conception of justice which is unduly stretched to include many other activities beyond the scope of taw.

(a) Primary and Secondary functions of the state:

Accord­ing to Salmond the two primary and essential functions of Government are.war and the administration of justice. The purpose of the both is the same, viz., the maintenance of safety and security of the people from external danger in the former case and within the slate itself in the latter.

The state is preserved from external danger by the waging of war, while its disintegration as a result of lawless activities within the body politics is prevented by the administration of justice.

The secondary functions of the stale may be divided into two’ classes. The first consists of those which serve to secure the efficient fulfillment of the primary functions, the chief of these being two, viz., legislation and taxation. Legislation is the formulation of rules according to which the state intends to fulfill its function of administering justice.

Taxation is the instrument by means of which the slate obtains the revenue which enables it to discharge its primary functions. The remaining class of secondary functions consists of all other forms of activity which are deemed fit to be undertaken by the state.

The primary and essential functions of the Slate may be regarded as the irreducible minimum functions of the State. As regards the maximum functions of the Slate there are two diametrically opposite theories, viz., the socialism and individualism or laiseez faire.

Under the former theory the slate assumes to itself an unlimited variety of functions for the welfare of the members of the society, while under the latter a theory advocated by John Stuari Mill the individual is left free, the state assuming to itself is barest minimum of activity. A wise policy of stale should be to follow a middle course so as to leave enough scope of private enterprise.

(b) Independent and dependent States:

An independent state exhibits both the finical and external marks of sovereignty; it does not owe allegiance to any higher authority either in its internal or in its external affairs. There is no third partly to intermeddle in its rela­tions with other states.

A dependent state, on the other hand, has no separate existence hut forms part of a greater state to whose government it is subject.

Sir John Salmond unlike Austin holds that a dependent stale is also a slate if possesses the essential organization by maintaining separate legislature, judicature and executive and fulfils the primary functions of a slate by maintaining order and justice.

According to him, limitation of its authority by another slate does not militate against its statehood.

“A part of a rope is itself a rope, if long enough to serve the ordinary purpose of one, but part of a shilling is not its hilling.”

A dependent stale, according to Oppenheim, is a subject of international law, if it possesses control over foreign relations.

(c) Unitary and Composite state:

A unitary suite is one where the supreme legislative power of the stale resides in one central au­thority. It is not made up of territorial divisions. A unitary state thus possesses a single sovereign organ exercising dominion over the whole territory comprised within the stale. Great Britain is an example of a unitary state.

A composite state, on the oilier hand, is one which is itself an aggregate or group of constituent states. Composite states can be sub­divided into Imperial, Federal and Confederate Stales. In an Imperial Stale the Central Government possesses in itself the entire sovereignty of the composite staid and the constituent suites possess no portion of this sovereignty.

In a Federal Suite, on the other hand, the sovereignty of the entire suite is divided between the central or federal government and the governments of the several constituent stales. The U.S.A. and India are examples of federal stales where the supreme government is divided by the Constitution in definite shares between the central or common government and the several constituent suites.

A composite stale may, however, be distinguished from confed­eration, which is constituted by a number of full sovereign suites linking together by an international treaty into a union with organs of government extending over the member-slates but not over the sub­jects of those Stales.

They unite by means of a compact for the pur­poses of mutual co-operation or defence, each constituent member retaining its sovereignty and separate identity. Such confederation is not a state.

In a confederate state the members remain free even to enter treaties and declare on their own account. A confederation is merely an alliance between independent states which does not create any effective common organization.

Membership of State:

There are two kinds of membership in a state, viz., citizenship and residence. Citizenship is a legal relation between the member and the state, which is personal in nature. It continues even if the member goes out of the territory of the state, Residence is a territorial bond between the state and the subject. It connotes temporary membership of the political community.

The members of a state are called the citizens of that state; all the rest are resident aliens. Both are entitled to receive equal protection of the state, but citizenship carries with it certain greater rights which are not available to resident aliens.

Citizens owe permanent allegiance to the state and in cases of emergency greater sacrifices are demanded from them than from resident aliens. Resident aliens owe temporary alle­giance during their period of residence.

They, however, owe a perma­nent allegiance to the state of which they are citizens, though it is limited for the movement by their residence abroad. Citizenship confers both civil and political rights, while residence confers only civil rights.

Nationality may be required by birth viz., jus sanguinis (nation­ality of male parents), jus soli (locality of birth), or a mixture of both, by nature of both, by naturalisation, by resumption, by subjugation and by cession of territory. By naturalisation is meant the reception of an alien into the citizenship of a state or in the narrower sense only on the formal grant of an application for the purpose.

Nationality may be lost by release upon application, deprivation, lapse (long residence aboard in certain cases), and option or by substitu­tion, i.e., acquiring a new nationality.