Sir,--This question has now been answered, in unmistakable terms, on behalf of this country by Lord Lansdowne in his reply, which you printed yesterday, to Messrs. Powley, Thomas, and Co., and on behalf of Japan by the proclamation which appears in _The Times_ of to-day. Both of these documents set forth the old British doctrine, now fully adopted in the United States, and beginning to win its way on the Continent of Europe, that, besides articles which are absolutely contraband, other articles _ancipitis usus_, and amongst them coal, may become so under certain conditions. "When destined," says Lord Lansdowne, "for warlike as opposed to industrial use." "When destined," says Japan, "for the enemy's army or navy, or in such cases where, _being goods arriving, at enemy's territory_, there is reason to believe that they are intended for use of enemy's army or navy." I may say that the words which I have italicised must, I think, have been mistranslated or mistransmitted. Their intention is, doubtless, substantially that which was more clearly expressed in the Japanese proclamation of 1894 by the words: "Either the enemy's fleet at sea or a hostile port used exclusively or mainly for naval or military equipment." A phrase in your issue of to-day with reference to the Cardiff coal trade suggests that it may be worth while to touch upon the existence of a widely-spread confusion between the grounds on which export of coal may be prohibited by a neutral country and those which justify its confiscation, although on board a neutral ship, by a belligerent. A neutral State restrains, under certain circumstances, the export of coal, not because coal is contraband, but because such export is converting the neutral territory into a base of belligerent operations. The question of contraband or no contraband only arises between the neutral carrier and the belligerent when the latter claims to be entitled to interfere with the trade of the former.