In those early attempts at legislation for the conduct of warfare it seems to have been thought sufficient that the conclusions arrived at by authorised delegates should be announced without being embodied in a treaty. Surely, however, what purported to be international agreements upon vastly important topics ought to have been accompanied by all the formalities required for "conventions," and should have been so entitled. In later times this has become the general rule for the increasingly numerous agreements which bear upon the conduct of hostilities. Thus we have The Hague "conventions" of 1899 and 1907, and the Geneva "convention" of 1906, all duly equipped with provisions for ratification. Such provisions are also inserted in certain other recent agreements dealing with aerial bombardments, gases, and expanding bullets, which it has nevertheless pleased their contrivers to misdescribe as "declarations." Equally so misdescribed was the deceased Declaration of London, with a view, apparently, to suggesting, as was far from being the case, that it was a mere orderly statement of universally accepted principles, creating no new obligations. Is it not to be desired that all future attempts for the international regulation of warfare should not only be specifically made subject to ratification, but should also, in accordance with fact, be described as "conventions"? I am, Sir, your obedient servant, T. E. HOLLAND. Oxford, August 13 (1916). THE DECLARATION OF PARIS Sir,--If Mr. Gibson Bowles, whose courteous letter I have just been reading, will look again at my letter of the 18th, I think he will see that I there carefully distinguished between the Declaration of Paris, which, as is notorious, must be accepted as a whole or not at all, and the rules set forth in it, "except, possibly, the prohibition of privateering," which I thought, for the reasons which I stated, might be taken to have become a portion of International Law. I must be excused from following Mr. Bowles into a discussion of the bearing of those rules upon the Order in Council of March 11, 1915--a large and delicate topic, which must be studied in elaborate dispatches exchanged between this country and the United States. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, T. E. HOLLAND. Oxford, August 17 (1916). * * * * * SECTION 8 _Assassination_ THE NATAL PROCLAMATION Sir,--It was reported a few days ago that the Natal Government had offered a reward for Bambaata, dead or alive. I have waited for a statement that no offer of the kind had been made, or that it had been made by some over-zealous official, whose act had been disavowed. No such statement has appeared. On the contrary, we read that "the price placed upon the rebel's head has excited native cupidity." It may therefore be desirable to point out that what is alleged to have been done is opposed to the customs of warfare, whether against foreign enemies or rebels.