se with which the British
government learnt that rice and provisions were to be treated as
unconditionally contraband--"a step which they regarded as inconsistent
with the law and practice of nations." They furthermore "felt
themselves bound to reserve their rights by also protesting against the
doctrine that it is for the belligerent to decide what articles are as a
matter of course, and without reference to other considerations, to be
dealt with as contraband of war, regardless of the well-established
rights of neutrals"; nor would the British government consider itself
bound to recognize as valid the decision of any prize court which
violated those rights. It did not dispute the right of a belligerent to
take adequate precautions for the purpose of preventing contraband of
war, in the hitherto accepted sense of the words, from reaching the
enemy; but it objected to the introduction of a new doctrine under which
"the well-understood distinction between conditional and unconditional
contraband was altogether ignored, and under which, moreover, on the
discovery of articles alleged to be contraband, the ship carrying them
was, without trial and in spite of her neutrality, subjected to
penalties which are reluctantly enforced even against an enemy's ship."
(See section 40 of Russian Instructions on Procedure in Stopping,
Examining and Seizing Merchant Vessels, published in _London Gazette_ of
March 18, 1904.) In particular circumstances provisions might acquire a
contraband character, as, for instance, if they should be consigned
direct to the army or fleet of a belligerent, or to a port where such
fleet might be lying, and if facts should exist raising the presumption
that they were about to be employed in victualling the fleet of the
enemy. In such cases it was not denied that the other belligerent would
be entitled to seize the provisions as contraband of war, on the ground
that they would afford material assistance towards the carrying on of
warlike operations. But it could not be admitted that if such provisions
were consigned to the port of a belligerent (even though it should be a
port of naval equipment) they should therefore be necessarily regarded
as contraband of war. The test was whether there were circumstances
relating to any particular cargo to show that it was destined for
military or naval use.

The Russian government replied that they could not admit that articles
of dual use when addressed to private in