other means and on the surface to maintain the neutrality of their territory and the control of their waters.

The general principles enunciated in articles 3, 4, and 5 met with practically no objection except from Turkey concerning the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. Article 6 has been criticised because it is not sufficiently definite and limited in the period providing for the transformation of mines in conformity with the rules laid down in articles 1 and 3. It seems to border upon the hypercritical to complain of this, for with varying budgets and technical skill and resources it appeared to be almost impossible to bind the nations to a fixed time. The governing principle being agreed upon, it is not very likely to be ignored and mines of the old pattern used if there is sufficient interval allowed before the next naval war.

The rules as given above and adopted do not go as far as the United States and many other powers, including Great Britain, desired, but the half loaf is certainly better than no loaf at all. By the next conference it is hoped that the safety of the high seas will be provided for in a more effective and comprehensive manner than the rules which were finally formulated. It is, however, a beginning, but, in the words of Sir Ernest Satow, a British delegate, this arrangement can not be considered as giving a definite solution to the question. It is something where nothing before existed, and at least a milestone on the way to a more complete correction of the evils with which it deals.

C. H. STOCKTON.

BOMBARDMENT BY NAVAL FORCES.

Among the six voeux to be found in the final act of the First Hague Peace Conference is the following:

The conference expresses the wish that the proposal to settle the question of the bombardment of ports, towns, and villages by a naval force may be referred to a subsequent conference for consideration.

This recommendation did not fall upon deaf ears, and among the most admirable results of the Second Peace Conference is the small but simple convention forbidding the bombardment of undefended ports, towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings. This is not the appropriate place to discuss the relation between a recommendation of one conference and the work of a succeeding one, but it is pleasing to note that the recommendation of a conference is not a burial; that it calls attention of the powers to the subject-matter and thus paves the way for a substantial agreement at the conference to which the recommendation is referred. If the recommendations of the Second Conference fare as well as the recommendation of the First Conference regarding bombardment, the world will be the gainer and the cause of international justice, and therefore of peace, will be much advanced by the Third Conference, which is gradually becoming the center of hope and expectation.

The purpose of war is to bring the enemy to terms, and any means calculated to attain this desirable end are legitimate, provided they do not cause needless suffering and are not in their nature more brutal than war must always be. The noncombatant is regarded merely as a prospective enemy, to be looked upon with suspicion but not to be subjected to the pains and penalties of the soldier in the field. Public property may indeed be appropriated; private property may be destroyed for a military purpose, may be requisitioned, or may be subjected to contribution, but it is no longer at the mercy

of an enemy or invader. A fortress may be assaulted, but the

garrison is no longer put to the sword for a refusal to surrender. A fortified town may be taken by storm, but the noncombatant and his property must be spared, so far as possible. Article 25 of the regulations respecting the laws and customs of war on land adopted at the First Hague Conference provides that the "attack or bombardment of towns, villages, habitations, or buildings which are not defended is prohibited." The enemy, his means of attack and defense, may be reduced by force. The defenseless, whether they be noncombatants or merely property, are no longer exposed to attack or destruction. It is true that this article and its salutory prohibition applies to land warfare, and the attempt to extend it to naval warfare failed for the moment because Great Britain was unwilling to extend the discussion beyond the immediate program- namely, the codification of the laws and customs of warfare on land -- hence the reference to a subsequent conference. There is, however, no reason why a different rule should prevail in naval warfare and that nonoffending and defenseless towns, villages, or habitations should be destroyed merely because the assailant is able to do so. Devastation in land warfare has not produced peace. It has, on the contrary, prolonged war and created an animosity which survives the war in which it occurred. It is not only brutal but useless as well. As long ago as 1694 Evelyn said:

Lord Berkeley burnt Dieppe and Havre in revenge for the defeat at Brest. This manner of destructive war was begun by the French, and is exceedingly ruinous, especially falling on the poorer people, and does not seem to tend to make a more speedy end of the war, but rather to exasperate and incite to revenge.1

Devastation of the coast, whether it be produced by land forces or by the enemy at sea, is still devastation and there is no reason to believe that the effect upon the enemy will be different merely because the devastation is the result of bombardment rather than the result of fire and sword by land.

When the Prince de Joinville recommended in 1844, in case of war, the devastation of the great commercial towns of England, the Duke of Wellington wrote: "What but the inordinate desire of popularity could

1 Hall, International Law, 5th ed., 533, note 2.

have induced a man in his station to write and publish such a production, an invitation and provocation to war, to be carried on in a manner such as has been disclaimed by the civilized portions of mankind."

But, rejected by the Duke of Wellington, the opinion of the Prince de Joinville was recently espoused by Admiral Aube, a French naval officer, in an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes, where he argued that the purpose of war is to inflict the greatest possible damage to the enemy and that

enemy

As wealth is the sinews of war, all that strikes at the wealth of the a fortiori all that strikes at the source of wealth - becomes not only legitimate but obligatory. It must therefore be expected that the fleets, mistresses of the sea, will turn their powers of attack and destruction, instead of letting the enemy escape from blows, against all the cities of the coast, fortified or not, peaceful or warlike, to burn them, to ruin them, and at least to ransom them without mercy. This was the former practice; it ceased; it will prevail again. Strasbourg and Péronne assure it.1

This relapse into barbarism was like a bolt in a clear sky, because there were very few examples of the bombardments of undefended coast line and these precedents were universally discredited. The only recent example of the bombardment of a commercial town as an act of devastation was the case of Valparaiso, attacked in the year 1866 by the Spanish fleet, but, to quote the measured language of the late Mr. Hall, "the act gave rise to universal indignation at the time, and has never been defended.” 5

The article of Admiral Aube gave rise to great discussion, and it may be said that the proposition to subject undefended coast towns to destruction met with little or no favor. The Admiral's suggestion that they should purchase their immunity by ransom met a like fate, but a very lively and by no means unprofitable discussion has arisen

2 Raikes, Correspondence, p. 367, quoted from the Annuaire de l'Institut du Droit International, 15:149.

3 La guerre maritimes et les ports militaires de la France, Vol. L., pp. 314-346. 4 Loc. cit., p. 331.

5 Hall, International Law, 5th ed., 556, note 2. For an elaborate statement of this unjustifiable and unjustified bombardment, see Moore's International Law Digest, § 1170.

over the question whether undefended ports, towns, and villages might be subject to requisitions and contributions.

There is no recent writer on international law who enjoys greater and more merited authority than the late Mr. W. E. Hall, and for this reason he is selected to voice the view of publicists:

Two questions are suggested by the above indications of opinion and of probable action on the part of naval powers. First, the restricted one, whether contributions and requisitions can legitimately be levied by a naval force under threat of bombardment, without occupation being effected by a force of debarkation; and, secondly, the far larger one, whether the bombardment and devastation of undefended towns, and the accompanying slaughter of unarmed populations, is a proper means of carrying on war. The latter question will find its answer elsewhere.

Requisitions may be quickly disposed of. They are not likely to be made except under conditions in which a demand for the article requisitioned would be open to little, if any, objection. A vessel of war or a squadron can not be sent to sea in an efficient state without having on board a plentiful supply of stores identical with, or analogous to, those which form the usual and proper subjects of requisition by a military force. It is only in exceptional and unforeseen circumstances that a naval force can find itself in need of food or of clothing; when it is in want of these, or of coal, or of other articles of necessity, it can unquestionably demand to be supplied wherever it is in a position to seize; it would not be tempted to make the requisition except in case of real need; and generally the time required for the collection and delivery of large quantities of bulky articles, and the mode in which delivery would be effected, must be such that if the operation were completed without being interrupted, sufficient evidence would be given that the requisitioning force was practically in possession of the place. In such circumstances it would be almost pedantry to deny a right of facilitating the enforcement of the requisition by bombardment or other means of intimidation."

Contributions stand upon a different footing. They do not find their justification in the necessity of maintaining a force in an efficient state; they must show it either in their intrinsic reasonableness, or in the identity of the conditions, under which they would be levied, with those which exist when contributions are levied during war upon land. Such identity does not exist. In the case of hostilities upon land a belligerent is in military occupation of the place subjected to contribution; he is in

• If articles are requisitioned which are not needed for the efficiency of the force, such as articles of luxury, or articles which will not be used by it, but will be turned into money, a disguised contribution is of course levied, and the propriety or impropriety of the demand must be judged by the test of the propriety or the impropriety of contributions.