On the authority of International Law, _supra_, pp. 25, 66, 67; _infra_, pp. 77, 114, 115, 137, 169. * * * * * SECTION 5 _Submarines_ GERMANY AND THE HAGUE Sir,--One excuse for German atrocities put forward, as you report, in the _Kolnische Zeitung_, ought probably not to pass unnoticed, denying, as it does, any binding authority to the restrictions imposed upon the conduct of warfare, on land or at sea, by The Hague Conventions of 1907. It is true that each of these Conventions contains an article to the effect that its provisions "are applicable only between the contracting Powers, and only if all the belligerents are parties to the Convention." It is also true that three of the belligerents in the world-war now raging--namely, Serbia, Montenegro, and, recently, Turkey--although they have (through their delegates) signed these Conventions, have not yet ratified them. Therefore, urges the _Zeitung_, the Conventions are, for present purposes, waste paper. The argument is as technically correct as its application would be unreasonable; and I should like to recall the fact that, in the important prize case of the _Möwe_, Sir Samuel Evans, in a considered judgment, pointed out the undesirability of refusing application to the maritime conventions because they had not been ratified by Montenegro, which has no navy, or by Serbia, which has no seaboard; and accordingly, even after Turkey, which also has not ratified, had become a belligerent, declined to deprive a German shipowner of an indulgence to which he was entitled under the Sixth Hague Convention. Admiral von Tirpitz was perhaps not serious when he intimated to the representative of the United Press of America that German submarines might be instructed to torpedo all trading vessels of the Allies which approach the British coasts. The first duty of a ship of war which proposes to sink an enemy vessel is admittedly, before so doing, to provide for the safety of all its occupants, which (except in certain rare eventualities) can only be secured by their being taken on board of the warship. A submarine has obviously no space to spare for such an addition to its own staff. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, T. E. HOLLAND. Oxford, December 26 (1914). The charitable view taken in the last paragraph has, of course, not been justified. For the _Möwe_, see 2 Lloyd, 70. On the restrictive article in The Hague Convention, _cf. passim_. "THE PIRATES" Sir,--Would it not be desirable, in discussing the execrable tactics of the German submarines, to abandon the employment of the terms "piracy" and "murder," unless with a distinct understanding that they are used merely as terms of abuse?