violation of the Law of Nations," or as "liable to the penalties
denounced by such law." Carriage of contraband, and acts of the same
class, are notoriously not condemned by English law, neither are they,
in any proper sense, breaches of the Law of Nations, which, speaking
scientifically, never deals with individuals, as such, but only with the
rights and duties of States _inter se_. What the Law of Nations really
does is, as I said in 1904, "to define the measures to which a
belligerent may resort for the suppression of such acts, without laying
himself open to remonstrance from the neutral Government to which the
traders implicated owe allegiance"; (3) that on the other hand, I am
glad to find that, in accordance with my suggestion, while it continues
very properly to be stated that persons doing the acts under discussion
"will in no wise obtain any protection from Us against such capture,
&c.," the further statement that such persons "will, on the contrary,
incur Our high displeasure by such misconduct," has now been with equal
propriety omitted.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
The Athenaeum, October 9 (1911).

THE PROCLAMATION OF NEUTRALITY

Sir,--May I be allowed to point out that two questions arise upon the
recent British Proclamation of Neutrality which were not, as they should
have been, in the House of Commons last night, kept entirely distinct?

The Government has surely done right in now omitting, as I suggested in
1904, with reference to certain classes of acts which are prohibited
neither by English nor by International Law, a phrase announcing that
the doers of them would incur the King's "high displeasure"; while
retaining the warning that doers of such acts must be prepared for
consequences from which their own Government will not attempt to shield
them.

On the other hand, our Government has surely erred in not specifying, as
in previous Proclamations, the sort of acts to which this warning
relates--viz., to acts such as carriage of contraband, enemy service,
and breach of blockade, which differ wholly in character from those
violations of the Foreign Enlistment Act against which the bulk of the
Proclamation is directed. As the Proclamation now stands, no clear
transition is marked between breaches of English law and the unspecified
acts which, though perfectly legal, will forfeit for the doers of them
any claim to British protection from the consequences involved. Traders
a