e relatives of any of her European officers who may have been lost,
any claim for compensation. I have said nothing about the violation by
the Japanese of the usages of civilised warfare (not of the Geneva
Convention, which has no bearing upon the question), which would be
involved by their having fired upon the Chinese troops in the water; not
only because the evidence upon this point is as yet insufficient, but
also because the grievance, if established, would affect only the rights
of the Belligerents _inter se_; not the rights of neutrals, with which
alone this letter is concerned. I have also confined my observations to
the legal aspects of the question, leaving to others to test the conduct
of the Japanese commander by the rules of chivalrous dealing or of
humanity.

Your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
Athenaeum Club, August 6 (1894)

The controversy caused by the sinking of the _Kowshing_ in 1894
was revived by the manner of the Japanese attack upon Port
Arthur, in 1904 (see Professor Takahashi's _International Law
applied to the Russo-Japanese War_, 1908, p. 1), and led to a
careful study of the subject by a committee of the Institut de
Droit International, resulting in the adoption by the Institut,
at its Ghent Meeting in 1906, of the following resolutions:--

(1) "It is in conformity with the requirements of International
law, to the loyalty which the nations owe to one another in
their, mutual relations, as well as to the general interests of
all States, that hostilities ought not to commence without
previous and unequivocal warning.

(2) "This warning may be given either in the shape of a
declaration of war pure and simple, or in the shape of an
ultimatum duly notified to the adversary by the State which
wishes to begin the war.

(3) "Hostilities must not commence until after the expiration
of a delay which would suffice to prevent the rule as to a
previous and unequivocal warning from being thought to be
evaded." See the _Annuaire de l'Institut_, t, xxi. p. 292.

In accordance with the principles underlying the first and
second of these resolutions, The Hague Convention, No. iii. of
1907 (ratified generally by Great Britain on November 27,
1909), has now laid down as a principle of International Law,
binding upon the contracting Powers, that--

(1) "Hostilities between them ought not to comm