rrespectively of the character of that port, or of the use to
which the articles would probably be put. It was only after much
correspondence, and the receipt of strong protests from Great Britain
and the United States, that Russia consented to recognise the well-known
distinction between "absolute" and "conditional" contraband; the latter
class consisting of articles useful in peace as well as for war, the
character of which must, therefore, depend upon whether they are, in
point of fact, destined for warlike or for peaceful uses. This
concession was made about the middle of September last, and it was then
agreed that provisions should be placed in the secondary category (as
was duly explained in the Petersburg judgment in the case of the
_Arabia_ on December 14) together with some other articles, among which
it seemed that raw cotton was not included.

The final decision in the _Calchas_ case marks a welcome change of
policy. Cotton has now followed foodstuffs into the category of
"conditional" contraband, and effect has so far been given to the
representations on the subject made by Mr. Hay in circular despatches of
June 10 and August 30, 1904, and by Sir Charles Hardinge, in a note
presented to Count Lamsdorff on October 9 of the same year.

The question had become a practical one in the case of the _Calchas_. On
July 25 this vessel, laden with, _inter alia_, nine tons of raw cotton
for Yokohama and Kobe, was seized by a Russian cruiser and carried into
Vladivostok, where, on September 18, the cotton, together with other
portions of her cargo, was condemned as absolutely contraband. The
reasons for repudiating this decision, and the notification to which it
gave effect, were not far to seek, and it may still be worth while to
insist upon them. As against Russia, it is well to recall that, from the
days of the Armed Neutralities onwards, her traditional policy has been
to favour a very restricted list of contraband; that when in 1877, as
again in 1900 and 1904, she included in it materials "servant de faire
sauter les obstacles," the examples given of such materials were things
so immediately fitted for warlike use as "les mines, les torpilles, la
dynamite," &c.; and that what is said as to "conditional contraband" by
her trusted adviser, Professor de Martens, in his _Droit International_,
t. iii (1887), pp. 351-354, can scarcely be reconciled with her recent
action.

But a still stronger argument against the inclu