ve culminated in the action of a body rejoicing
in the somewhat cumbrous title of the "International Central
Organisation for a Durable Peace," which is inviting members of about
fifty societies, of very varying degrees of competence, to a
cosmopolitan meeting, to be held at Berne in December next. Lest the
unwary should be beguiled into having anything to do with the plausible
offer made to them that they should, there and then, assist in compiling
"a scientific dossier, containing material that will be of vast
importance to the diplomats who may be chosen to participate in the
peace congress itself," it may be worth while to call attention to the
composition of the executive committee by which the invitations are
issued, and to its "minimum programme."

Of the members of this committee (of thirteen), on which Great Britain
is represented only by Mr. Lowes Dickenson (mistakenly described as a
Cambridge Professor), and America only by Mrs. Andrews, of Boston, the
best known are Professors Lammasch, of Vienna, and Schuecking, of
Marburg. The "minimum programme" demands, _inter alia_, "equal rights
for all nations in the colonies, &c.," of the Powers; submission of all
disputes to "pacific procedure," joint action by the Powers against any
one of them resorting to military measures, rather than to such
procedure; and that "the right of prize shall be abolished, and the
freedom of the seas shall be guaranteed." The _provenance_ of this
"minimum programme" is sufficiently obvious. What is likely to be the
character of such a "maximum programme" as will doubtless be aimed at by
the proposed gathering?

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
Oxford, October 16 (1915).

CHAPTER VII

THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF NEUTRALS

SECTION 1

_The Criterion of Neutral Conduct_

The main object of the first of the following letters was to
assert, as against any possible misunderstanding of phraseology
attributed to a great international lawyer (since lost to
science and to his friends by his sudden death on June 20,
1909), the authority by which alone neutral rights and duties
are defined.

The letter also touches upon the limit of time which a neutral
Power is bound to place upon the stay in its ports of
belligerent ships of war; a topic more fully discussed in
Section 4.

PROFESSOR DE MARTENS ON THE SITUATION

Sir,--The name of my distinguished friend, M. de Martens