he Russian Government
against the bombardment by the Japanese fleet of a quarantine station on
the island of San-shan-tao, apart from questions of fact, as to which we
have as yet no reliable information, recalls attention to a question of
international law of no slight importance--viz. under what, if any,
circumstances it is permissible for a naval force to bombard an "open"
coast town.

In the first place, it may be hardly necessary to point out the
irrelevancy of the reference, alleged to have been made in the Russian
Note, to "Article 25 of The Hague Convention." The Convention and the
_Reglement_ annexed to it are, of course, exclusively applicable to "la
guerre sur terre." Not only, however, would any mention of a naval
bombardment have been out of place in that _Reglement_, but a proposal
to bring such action within the scope of its 25th Article, which
prohibits "the attack or bombardment of towns, villages, habitations, or
buildings which are not defended," was expressly negatived by the
Conference of The Hague. It became abundantly clear, during the
discussion of this proposal, that the only chance of an agreement being
arrived at was that any allusion to maritime warfare should be carefully
avoided. It was further ultimately admitted, even by the advocates of
the proposal, that the considerations applicable to bombardments by an
army and by a naval force respectively are not identical. It was, for
instance, urged that an army has means other than those which may alone
be available to a fleet for obtaining from an open town absolutely
needful supplies. The Hague Conference, therefore, left the matter where
it found it, recording, however, among its "pious wishes" (_voeux_)
one to the effect "that the proposal to regulate the question of the
bombardment of ports, towns, and villages by a naval force should be
referred for examination to a future conference."

The topic is not a new one. You, Sir, allowed me to raise it in your
columns with reference to the naval manoeuvres of 1888, when a
controversy ensued which disclosed the existence of a considerable
amount of naval opinion in favour of practices which I ventured to think
in contravention of international law. It was also thoroughly debated in
1896 at the Venice meeting of the Institut de Droit International upon a
report drafted by myself, as chairman of a committee appointed a year
previously. This report lays down that the restrictions placed by
interna