ntains a specific prohibition. The
general provisions are as follows:--

"The progress of civilisation should have the effect of
alleviating as much as possible the calamities of war. The
only legitimate object which States should set before
themselves during war is to weaken the military forces of the
enemy. For this purpose it is sufficient to disable the
greatest possible number of men. This object would be
exceeded by the employment of arms which would uselessly
aggravate the sufferings of disabled men or render their
death inevitable. The employment of such arms would,
therefore, be contrary to the laws of humanity." (St.
Petersburg Declaration, 1868. Preamble.)

"The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the
enemy is not unlimited." (Hague _Reglement_, Art. 22.)

"Besides the prohibitions provided by special conventions [the
Declaration of St. Petersburg alone answers to this
description] it is in particular prohibited (_e_) to employ
arms, projectiles, or material of a nature to cause
superfluous injury." (_Ib._ Art. 23.)

The only special prohibition is that contained in the Declaration of St.
Petersburg, by which the contracting parties--

"Engage mutually to renounce, in case of war among
themselves, the employment by their military or naval forces
of any projectile of a weight below 400 grammes which is
either explosive or charged with fulminating or inflammable
substances."

No one, so far as I am aware, has any wish to employ a bullet weighing
less than 14 oz. which is either explosive or charged as above. So far,
therefore, as the generally accepted laws of warfare are concerned, the
only question as to the employment of Dum Dum or other expanding bullets
is whether they "uselessly aggravate the sufferings of disabled men, or
render their death inevitable"; in other words, whether they are "of a
nature to cause superfluous injury." It is, however, probable that
people who glibly talk of such bullets being "prohibited by The Hague
Convention" are hazily reminiscent, not of the _Reglement_ appended to
that convention, but of a certain "Declaration," signed by the delegates
of many of the Powers represented at The Hague in 1899, to the effect
that--

"The contracting Powers renounce the use of bullets which
expand or flatten easily in the hu