or unsound, is far easier than it would have been if the world on Great Britain's motion had abolished contraband. It would, in that case, have met with a far different reception from the not unsympathetic reception it is meeting with now, when it is widely felt that Great Britain is entitled to all the righs that the vague and indefinite ideas of contraband, blockade and continuous voyage can, by the broadest interpretation, be construed to give.

On the whole, I do not think it fanciful to conceive that, if at the second Hague Conference any of Great Britain's proposals as to the principle of contraband had been accepted, so that when the war broke out that principle no longer existed or had been so limited as not to cover foodstuffs and raw materials, Great Britain would not have hindered the importation to Germany through Holland, Denmark and other neutral countries of grain, flour, cotton, copper, rubber and oil; there would have been no Gĕrman submarine warfare against merchant shipping, no British orders in council, and consequently no controversies based on such warfare or orders between the United States and Germany or the United States and Great Britain.

I shall now touch very briefly on the subjects of the use of asphyxiating gas, the use of air machines for throwing projectiles and explosives, and the destruction of merchant ships.

At the first Hague Conference, a Russian delegate proposed to prohibit the use of projectiles charged with explosives which diffused asphyxiating or deleterious gases.

The delegates of Russia, Denmark, France, Austria-Hungary and Great Britain supported the proposal, arguing that "death from asphyxiation is more cruel than death from bullets;" and that the use of such gases is barbarous and treacherous like the poisoning of drinking water.

The subcommittee by whom the subject was being considered voted for the prohibition unanimously with the exception of Captain Mahan, the delegate from the United

States. He opposed the resolution in subcommittee, committee and conference. His argument was that everything that had been said as to the cruelty and perfidy of using asphyxiating shells had been said about using firearms and torpedoes when they were introduced; that it was illogical to permit the bottom of an ironclad to be blown out and all the people on board choked with water and to be tender about asphyxiating men with gas; that no one could tell until the shell emitting the asphyxiating gas was in practical use whether it would be merciful or the reverse; and that not until such a shell had been successfully produced would men be able to vote intelligently on the subject.

When the question was finally passed upon, Great Britain joined with the United States in voting "No," and all the other countries voted for the prohibition. But at the opening of the Conference of 1907, Sir Edward Frye announced for Great Britain that he had been instructed to accept the declaration against the use of asphxiating gases, and the United States was left alone in opposition to the prohibition of their use.

At the Conference of 1899 hurling projectiles or explosives from balloons was prohibited for a period of five years. The representative of The Netherlands in supporting the proposal said:

"We can foresee the use of projectiles or other things filled with deleterious gases or soporifics, which hurled from balloons into the midst of troops would disable them at once. Since such attacks cannot be guarded against, they resemble treachery, and all that resembles treachery should be scrupulously eliminated. Let us be chivalrous even in the manner of making war."

The subcommittee voted almost unanimously for the prohibition. One week later Captain Crozier, one of the representatitves of the United States, moved that the prohibition be limited to five years. It was difficult, he said, to justify the prohibition by humanitarian motives. It was possible that practical means might be invented by which at a critical moment and in a critical place on the field of battle, the balloon might decide the victory, "thus localizing

the destruction of life and property" and sparing the sufferings of all who were not at the precise spot. "Such use," he says, "tends to diminish the evils of war and to suport the humanitarian considerations which we have in view."

He did not know of any machines thus efficient and humanitarian; "but is it," he asks, "desirable to shut the door to their possible introduction among the permitted arms?"

These arguments won over the representatives of various nations, and after Russia had failed in a motion to make the prohibition ten years, the Commission adopted Captain Crozier's motion limiting the prohibition to five years.

When the Conference of 1907 came together, a great advance had been made in dirigibles, and although the Convention adopted a declaration extending the prohibition until the end of the Third Peace Conference, most of the great nations never accepted it.

At the second Hague Conference the question of the destruction of neutral ships which had been seized on the ground that they were violating blockade or carrying contraband or otherwise justifying capture was the subject of much consideration. Great Britain had always maintained that no military necessity could justify such destruction. All or nearly all other nations had considered it allowable under certain circumstances. The United States, for instance, in the War of 1812 and the Spanish-American War had given instructions that for lack of a prize crew the captor might destroy a neutral prize. During the Japanese War Russia sank neutral merchantmen captured by her. At the conference Russia proposed that captured neutral ships might be destroyed when it was necessary to the security of the captor or the success of its operations, the captor first to transship the passengers and crew. Absolutely to forbid such destruction, she said, would put at a disadvantage States with few ports. Germany supported the proposal and it was carried. Great Britain, Japan

and the United States opposed it and after its adoption did not ratify it. An article somewhat similar was adopted at the Conference of London.

All nations, including Great Britain, have always agreed that a captured enemy merchantman might be destroyed for the safety of the captor or the success of its military operations.

In the case of enemy and neutral merchantmen alike it has always been assumed that the passengers and the crew must be placed in safety before the destruction of the vessel.

I have finished my examination of the rules which I proposed for our consideration. What is being done in the war today in the fields to which they relate?

All belligerents are hurling explosives from air machines. Germany is using asphyxiating gases. Great Britain has claimed, and is claiming, the right to do things prohibited by the Declaration of Paris of 1856 and the Declaration of London of 1909, a code of laws of the seas, which, as I have said, although not ratified by her, was signed by her delegates, as well as the delegates of all the great powers. Germany has claimed, if she is not still claiming it, a right, which everyone for centuries has assumed did not exist, under certain circumstances to destroy without warning merchant ships and all on board. People never before in direct danger from war such as non-combatants far from the actual fighting, are constantly being maimed and killed. The seas are strewn with mines which threaten destruction alike to men-of-war and merchantmen, belligerent and neutral.

Will the rules that will be acknowledged a few years after the war is over authorize these methods of warfare, or harsher or milder methods?

Hurling bombs from air machines on places not within the fighting area has produced no adequate results; and every time it destroys or maims women or children it shocks a world that has grown used to the slaughter by

thousands of men in the field. Even if, as the war goes on, instead of killing a few non-combatants, it destroys railway bridges, munition factories and the like, in all probability the only consequence will be equal loss of property on both sides and equal amounts of time, money and labor spent by both sides in devising methods of protection.

The use of asphyxiating gas accomplished something perhaps when it was a novelty. But it is an unfaithful servant liable with a change of wind to turn upon its master; and there seem to be methods of protection against it. It is a suggestive step in a dangerous direction. If you poison the air, why not the wells?

It is difficult to believe that a world which fifteen years. ago almost unanimously condemned both these methods of warfare will be led to reverse that judgment by anything it has seen of them in the light of this war, or that the United States will ever again allow any of its delegates to a conference of nations to oppose the permanent prohibition of them both. Nothing has come to pass in this war, though more than sixteen years have gone by since the first Hague Conference, to make the reasons given by the army and navy colleagues of President Andrew D. White for opposing what mankind generally believed to be chivalrous and humane any more satisfying than when they failed, as he writes in his diary, to satisfy him. His colleagues foresaw uses of asphyxiating gas that might be decisive and even humane; he foresaw the possibility "that asphyxiating bombs might be used for the destruction of vast numbers of non-combatants, including women and children." His sight was clearer than theirs. Whatever the ultimate possibilities of invention producing more agreeable methods of destruction, the actual result as shown by this war is the production of more terrible methods; and so far as this country certainly, and other countries probably, are concerned, public opinion is more today than formerly with Russia in the attitude which she has always taken in the