reason, I welcome the letter from Mr. Gibson
Bowles, which appeared in _The Times_ of yesterday, although it contains
some statements the inaccuracy of which it may be desirable at once to
point out.

1. The Declaration of Paris is neither implicitly nor explicitly adopted
by the Declaration of London, "as a part of the common law of nations
which can no longer be disputed." The later makes no mention of the
earlier one, and M. Benault's _rapport_ (as to the interpretative
authority of which opinions may well differ) applies the words quoted,
not to the Paris Declaration as a whole, but to one only of its
articles. Mr. Bowles's statement that "the Declaration of London, if
adopted, would reaffirm, and its ratification would in effect, for the
first time ratify, the Declaration of Paris" cannot be supported.

2. Mr. Bowles asserts it to be "an unquestioned doctrine of the Law of
Nations that war abrogates and annuls treaty obligations between
belligerents." One would have supposed it to be common knowledge that
large classes of treaties are wholly unaffected by war. Such are, for
instance, what are called conventions _transitoires_, because their
effect is produced once for all, as in the case of cessions of
territory; and, notably, treaties entered into for the regulation of the
conduct of war, such as the Geneva Convention, many of The Hague
Conventions of 1907, and the Declaration of Paris itself, which Mr.
Bowles appears to think would _ipso facto_ cease to be obligatory
between its signatories on their becoming belligerent.

It is a pleasure to be able to agree with Mr. Bowles in his wish that
the Naval Prize Bill, if reintroduced, should be rejected, though I
would rather say "withdrawn." You have already allowed me (on July 10)
to point out that if the Convention and Declaration are to be
effectively discussed in Parliament they should be disentangled from
that Bill, into which the Convention, and, by implication, the
Declaration, have been incongruously thrust. This practically
non-contentious Consolidation Bill, after several times securing the
approval of the House of Lords, has hitherto for several years awaited
the leisure of the House of Commons, but was suddenly reintroduced last
Session, apparently as an unobtrusive vehicle for the new and highly
debatable matter contained in the two above-mentioned documents. May I
now repeat my suggestion that "the debatable questions arising under the
Convention of