'912.] MOORE— CONTRABAND OF WAR. 37 



communication of the decision of the prize court, and was directed 

 to " make earnest protest against it " and to say that his government 

 regretted " its complete inabihty to recognize the principle of that 

 decision and still less to acquiesce in it as a policy." 



In consequence of the British and American protests the Russian 

 government appointed a commission to consider the question of con- 

 traband, and on October 22, 1904, announced that, while horses and 

 beasts of burden would continue to be treated as contraband of war, 

 yet various other articles, including rice and foodstuffs, would be 

 considered as contraband if destined for a belligerent government, 

 its administration, army, navy, fortresses, naval ports, or purveyors, 

 but not if " addressed to private individuals." 



Since the war between Russia and Japan, the subject of contra- 

 band has been dealt with in the Declaration of London, signed Feb- 

 ruary 26, 1909, by representatives of Germany, the United States, 

 Austria-Hungary, Spain, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, the 

 Netherlands, and Russia, with the object of laying down rules of 

 maritime law, embracing blockade, contraband, unneutral service, 

 destruction of neutral prizes, and various other subjects, for the 

 government of the International Prize Court which Germany pro- 

 posed to the Second Peace Conference at The Hague, and for the 

 constitution of which provision was made by the convention signed 

 on October 18, 1907. As the House of Lords has lately rejected a 

 bill, which had passed the Commons, to carry this convention into 

 effect, the fate of the Declaration must, so far as Great Britain is 

 concerned, be regarded as at least doubtful. It has been fiercely 

 assailed in England, but has been ably defended by eminent persons, 

 among whom Westlakemay be particularly mentioned, who, although 

 they naturally do not pronounce it perfect, consider that its adop- 

 tion would on the whole be advantageous. Into this general ques- 

 tion it is beyond jny province now to enter, my subject being simply 

 contraband. 



The Declaration (Article 24), following the Grotian classifica- 

 tion, divides articles into (i) absolutely contraband, (2) condition- 

 ally contraband, and (3) absolutely noncontraband. The second 

 category — the conditionally contraband — includes fourteen general 



