h may implicate the neutral Power
internationally, while also rendering the shipper liable to penal
proceedings on the part of his own Government. I am gratified, to find
that the views thus expressed by me are in exact accordance with those
set forth by Lord Lansdowne in his reply of November 25 to the Chamber
of Shipping of the United Kingdom. Perhaps you will allow me to say
something further upon the same subject, suggested by several letters
which appear in your paper of this morning. I am especially desirous of
emphasising the proposition that carriage of contraband is no offence,
either against international law or against the law of England.

1. The rule of international law upon the subject may, I think, be
expressed as follows: "A belligerent is entitled to capture a neutral
ship engaged in carrying contraband of war to his enemy, to confiscate
the contraband cargo, and, in some cases, to confiscate the ship also,
without thereby giving to, the Power to whose subjects the property in
question belongs any ground for complaint." Or, to vary the phrase, "a
neutral Power is bound to acquiesce in losses inflicted by a belligerent
upon such of its subjects as are engaged in adding to the military
resources of the enemy of that belligerent." This is the rule to which
the nations have consented, as a compromise between the right of the
neutral State that its subjects should carry on their trade without
interruption, and the right of the belligerent State to prevent that
trade from bringing an accession of strength to his enemy. International
law here, as always, deals with relations between States, and has
nothing to do with the contraband trader, except in so far as it
deprives him of the protection of his Government. If authority were
needed for what is here advanced, it might be found in Mr. Justice
Story's judgment in the _Santissima Trinidad_, in President Pierce's
message of 1854, and in the statement by the French Government in 1898,
with reference to the case of the _Fram_, that "the neutral State is not
required to prevent the sending of arms and ammunition by its subjects."

2. Neither is carriage of contraband any offence against the law of
England; as may be learnt, by any one who is in doubt as to the
statement, from the lucid language of Lord Westbury in _Ex parte
Chavasse_ (34 L.J., Bkry., 17). And this brings me to the gist of this
letter. I have long thought that the form of the Proclamation of
Neutr