you allow me to reply in the fewest possible words to the
questions very courteously addressed to me by Mr. Gibson Bowles in his
letter which appeared in _The Times_ of yesterday?

1. It is certainly my opinion, for what it is worth, that the full
operation of the Convention of 1888 is suspended by the reserves first
made on behalf of this country during the sittings of the Conference of
1885. These reserves were texually repeated by Lord Salisbury in his
despatch of October 21, 1887, enclosing the draft convention which,
three days later, was signed at Paris by the representatives of France
and Great Britain, the two Powers which, with the assent of the rest,
had been carrying on the resumed negotiations with reference to the
canal. Lord Salisbury's language was also carefully brought to the
notice of each of the other Powers concerned; in the course of the
somewhat protracted discussions which preceded the final signature of
the same convention at Constantinople on October 29, 1888.

2. All the signatories of the convention having thus become parties to
it after express notice of "the conditions under which her Majesty's
Government have expressed their willingness to agree to it," must, it
can hardly be doubted, share the view that the convention is operative
only _sub modo_.

3. Supposing the convention to have become operative, and supposing the
territorial Power to be neutral in a war between States which we may
call A and B, the convention would certainly entitle A to claim
unmolested passage for its ships of war on their way to attack the
forces of B in the Eastern seas.

4. The language of the convention, being as it, is the expression of a
compromise involving much re-drafting, is by no means always as clear as
it might be. But when Mr. Gibson Bowles is again within reach of
Blue-books he will probably agree with me that the treaty need not, as
he suggests, be "read as obliging the territorial Power, even when
itself a belligerent, to allow its enemy to use the canal freely for the
passage of that enemy's men-of-war." The wide language of Art. 1 (which
is substantially in accordance with Mr. Gibson Bowles's reminiscence of
it) must be read in connection with Art. 10, and without forgetting
that, in discussing the effect of an attack upon the canal by one of the
parties to the convention, Lord Salisbury wrote in 1887, "on the whole
it appears to be the sounder view that, in such a case, the treaty,
being bro