other
departments of the law affecting neutrals. The eight letters
which follow, suggested respectively by the Spanish-American,
the Boer, and the Russo-Japanese wars, deal exclusively with
this topic, which seems likely to be henceforth governed no
longer only by customary and judge-made law, but largely also
by written rules, such as those suggested by the unratified
Declaration of London of 1909.

(_Absolute and Conditional Contraband_)

The divergence which has so long existed between Anglo-American
and Continental views upon contraband was very noticeable at
the commencement of the war of 1898, which gave occasion to the
letter which immediately follows. While the Spanish Decree of
April 23 set out only one list of contraband goods, the United
States Instructions of June 20 recognised two lists--viz. of
"absolute" and of "conditional" contraband, including under the
latter head "coal when destined for a naval station, a port of
call, or a ship or ships of the enemy; materials for the
construction of railways or telegraphs, and money, when such
materials or money are destined for an enemy's forces,
provisions, when destined for an enemy's ship or ships, for a
place besieged."

An answer was thus supplied to the question suggested in this
letter, as to articles _ancipitis usus_.

CONTRABAND OF WAR

Sir,--I fear that the mercantile community will hardly profit so much as
the managers of the Atlas Steamship Company seem to expect by the
information contained in their letter which you print this morning. It
was, indeed, unlikely that the courteous reply of the Assistant
Secretary of State at Washington to the enquiry addressed to him by the
New York agents of the company would contain a declaration of the policy
of the United States with reference to contraband of war. The threefold
classification of "merchandise" (not of "contraband") quoted in the
reply occurs, in the judgment of the Supreme Court in the well-known
case of the _Peterhoff_ (5 Wallace, 58), but it is substantially that of
Grotius, and has long been accepted in this country and in the United
States, while the Continent is, generally speaking, inclined to deny the
existence of "contraband by accident," and to recognise only such a
restricted list of contraband as was contained in the Spanish decree of
April 24 last.

The questions upon which shippers a