of use
also for non-hostile purposes being immaterial ("nec interesse an et
extra bellum usum praebeant"). The application of these remarks to the
case of cotton is sufficiently obvious.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
Oxford, August 23 (1915).

JAPANESE PRIZE LAW

Sir,--I hope you will allow me space for a few words with reference to
some statements occurring to-day in your Marine Insurance news which I
venture to think are of a misleading character.

Your Correspondent observes that--

"Although the Japanese are signatories to the Treaty of
Paris, it should not be forgotten that they haw a Prize Court
Law of their own (August 20, 1894), and are more likely to
follow its provisions, in dealing with the various captured
steamers, than the general principles of the Treaty of
Paris."

Upon this paragraph let me remark:--

1. The action of the Japanese is in full accordance with the letter and
spirit of all four articles of the Declaration of Paris. ("The Treaty of
Paris" has, of course, no bearing upon prize law.)

2. "The general principles" of that Declaration is a phrase which
conveys to me, I confess, no meaning.

3. The Japanese have, of course, a prize law of their own, borrowed, for
the most part, from our own Admiralty Manual of Prize Law. Neither the
British nor the Japanese instructions are in conflict with, or indeed
stand in any relation to, the Declaration of Paris.

4. The existing prize law of Japan was promulgated on March 7, 1904, not
on August 20, 1894.

Your Correspondent goes on to say that the Japanese definition of
contraband "is almost as sweeping as was the Russian definition, to
which the British Government took active objection last summer." So far
is this from being the case that the Japanese list is practically the
same as our own, both systems recognising the distinction between
"absolute" and "conditional" contraband, which, till the other day, was
ignored by Russia.

The Japanese rules as to the cases in which ships carrying contraband
may be confiscated are quite reasonable and in accordance with British
views. The third ground for confiscation mentioned by your Correspondent
does not occur in the instructions of 1904.

Ships violating a blockade are, of course, confiscable; but the Japanese
do not, as your Correspondent seems to have been informed, make the
existence of a blockade conditional upon its having been "n