l ships to
unblockaded portions of the enemy's coast on the ground that by carrying
diplomatic agents or despatches they are keeping up the communications
of his enemy with neutral Governments. But this indulgence rests on the
presumption that such official communications are "innocent," a
presumption obviously inapplicable to telegraphic messages
indiscriminately received in the course of business. It would seem,
therefore, to be as reasonable as it is in accordance with analogy, that
a belligerent should be allowed, within the territorial waters of his
enemy, to cut a cable, even though it may be neutral property, of which
the _terminus ad quem_ is enemy territory, subject only to a liability
to indemnify the neutral owners.

The cutting, elsewhere than in the enemy's waters, of a cable connecting
enemy with neutral territory receives no countenance from international
law. Still less permissible would be the cutting of a cable connecting
two neutral ports, although messages may pass through it which, by
previous and subsequent stages of transmission, may be useful to the
enemy.

Your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
Oxford, May 21 (1897).

SUBMARINE CABLES IN TIME OF WAR

Sir,--Will you allow me to refer in a few words to the interesting
letters upon the subject of submarine cables which have been addressed
to you by Mr. Parsone and Mr. Charles Bright? In asserting that "the
question as to the legitimacy of cable-cutting is covered by no
precedent," I had no intention of denying that belligerent interference
with cables had ever occurred. International precedents are made by
diplomatic action (or deliberate inaction) with reference to facts, not
by those facts themselves. To the best of my belief no case of
cable-cutting has ever been made matter of diplomatic representation,
and I understand Mr. Parsone to admit that no claim in respect of damage
to cables was presented to the mixed Commission appointed under the
Convention of 1883 between Great Britain and Chile.

In the course of his able address upon "Belligerents and Neutrals,"
reported in your issue of this morning, I observe that Mr. Macdonell
suggests that the Institut de Droit International might usefully study
the question of cables in time of war. It may, therefore, be well to
state that this service hat already been rendered. The Institut, at its
Paris meeting in 1878, appointed a committee, of which M. Renault was
chairman, to consider the whole