I may perhaps add a word or two on the undesirability of describing as "Declarations" documents which, being equipped with provisions for ratification, although they may profess to set out old law, differ in no respect from other conventions. Also, as to the need for greater caution on the part of our representatives than has been shown by their acceptance of various craftily suggested anti-British suggestions, such as were several embodied in the Declaration in question, and notably that of the notorious cl. 23 (_h_) of The Hague Convention iv., the interpretation of which has exercised the ingenuity of the Foreign Office and, more recently, of the Court of Appeal. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, T. E. HOLLAND. Brighton, July 9 (1916). On July 7, 1916, an Order in Council was made, revoking all Orders by which the provisions of the Declaration had been adopted, or modified, for the duration of the war; stating the intention of the Allies to exercise their belligerent rights at sea in strict accordance with the law of nations; but dealing specifically with certain doubtful points. The Order was accompanied by a memorandum, drawn up by the British and French Governments, explaining how their expectation that in the Declaration they would find "a suitable digest of principles and compendium of working rules" had not been realised. See also Lord Robert Cecil in the House of Commons on August 23, with reference to the Zamora case, [1916] 2 Ch. c. 77. On misuses of the term "Declaration" _cf. supra_, pp. 90, 91, 92. GERMANY WRONG AGAIN Sir,--The new German Note handed on Thursday last to the representatives of the neutral Powers supports its allegation that the four Allied Powers "have trampled upon right and torn up the treaties on which it was based" by the following statement:-- "Already in the first weeks of the war England had renounced the Declaration of London, the contents of which her own delegates had recognised as binding in international law." It is surely notorious that the delegates of a Power, by agreeing to the draft of a treaty, give to it no international validity, which results only when the treaty has been ratified by their Government. The Declaration of London has, most fortunately, never been ratified by the Government of Great Britain. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, T. E. HOLLAND. Oxford, January 13 (1917). INDEX