The three following sections relate to the waters in which hostile operations may take place. Section 1 probably calls for no explanatory remark. With reference to Section 2, dealing with certain spaces of water more or less closed to belligerent action, it may be desirable to state that the letters as to the Suez Canal were written to obviate some misconceptions as to the purport of the Convention of October 29, 1888, and to maintain that it was not, at the time of writing, operative, so far as Great Britain was concerned. This state of things was, however, altered by the Anglo-French Convention of April 8, 1804, which, concerned principally with the settlement of the Egyptian and Newfoundland questions, provides, in Art. 6, that "In order to assure the free passage of the Suez Canal, the Government of His Britannic Majesty declares that it adheres to the stipulations of the Treaty concluded on the 29th October 1888; and to their becoming operative. The free passage of the canal being thus guaranteed, the execution of the last phrase of paragraph 1, and that of paragraph 2 of the 8th article of this Treaty, will remain suspended." The last phrase of paragraph 1 of Art. 8 relates to annual meetings of the agents of the signatory Powers. Paragraph 2 of this Article relates to the presidency of a special commissioner of the Ottoman Government over those meetings. On the whole question see _Parl. Papers, Egypt_, No. 1 (1888), _Commercial_, No. 2 (1889), and the present writer's _Studies in International Law_, pp. 275-293. Note must, of course, now be taken of the constitutional changes resulting from the war of 1914. The provisions of the Treaty of 1888, with reference to the free navigation of the Suez Canal, have, of course, acquired a new importance from their adoption into the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of November 18, 1901, as to the Panama Canal, and from the divergent views taken of their interpretation, as so adopted. SECTION 1 _On the Open Sea_ "THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS"? Sir,--Your remarks upon "the wide and ambiguous suggestions" contained in the Pope's Peace Note are especially apposite to his desire for "the freedom of the seas." It is regrettable that his Holiness does not explain the meaning which he attaches to this phrase, in itself unmeaning, so dear to the Germans. He is doubtless well aware that the sea is already free enough, except to pirates, in time of peace, and must be presumed to refer to time of war, and specifically to propose the prohibition of any such interference with neutral shipping as is now legalised by the rules relating to visit and search, contraband and blockade.