with no uncertain voice on the treatment of mail steamers and mail-bags
(Art. 20). On cable-cutting it adopts in Art. 5, as your Correspondent
points out, the views which I ventured to maintain in your columns when
the question was raised during the war of 1898.[2] I may also, by the
way, claim the support of the code for the view taken by me, in a,
correspondence also carried on in your columns during the naval
manoeuvres of 1888, of the bombardment of open coast towns.[3] Art. 4
sets out substantially the rules upon this subject for which I secured
the _imprimatur_ of the Institut de Droit International in 1896.

Secondly, the code is so well brought up to date as to incorporate
(Arts. 21-29) the substance of The Hague Convention, ratified only in
September last, for applying to maritime warfare the principles of the
Convention of Geneva. Art. 10 of The Hague Convention has been
reproduced in the code, in forgetfulness perhaps of the fact that that
article has not been ratified.

Thirdly, the code contains, very properly, some general provisions
applicable equally to warfare upon land (Arts. 1, 3, 8, 12, 54).

Fourthly, it is clearly expressed; and it is brief, consisting of only
54 articles, occupying 22 pages.

Fifthly, it deals with two very distinct topics--viz. the mode of
conducting hostilities against the forces of the enemy, and the
principles applicable to the making prize of merchant vessels, which as
often as not may be the property of neutrals. These topics are by no
means kept apart as they might be, articles on prize occurring
unexpectedly in the section avowedly devoted to hostilities.