to the law in its first shape: the neutral merchant is free to carry on his trade with either or both belligerents to any extent, in arms or in anything else; but if he trades in contraband of war he takes the risk of losing his cargo. The justification for the rule can be put in simplest language. The belligerent has obviously no right, merely because he is at war, to order neutral merchants not to carry contraband to the enemy, nor even to expect that they will not. Neither can he insist that the neutral merchant’s Government should intervene on his behalf, and so commit a breach of neutrality towards the other belligerent. * * * * * Certain subsidiary questions arise at this point. First, the familiar distinction between absolute and conditional contraband. This follows in direct sequence from what has already been said. The belligerent is not fighting the civil population, but only the enemy Government and its forces. This compels him to interfere with neutral trade in everything that enables that Government to maintain its forces. But how to draw the line between things destined for the civil population and those destined for the forces, for things destined for the civilian may be serviceable to those forces, and may, in fact, be used by them. The broad principle governing conditional contraband was stated by Lord Salisbury in the _dictum_ as to foodstuffs already referred to. This principle was adhered to by us during the early months of the War, and was expressly referred to as having guided our action in Sir Edward Grey’s interim reply, of the 7th of January, to the American Note. But the War has revolutionised many ideas, and among them those which had led to the adoption of this principle by Great Britain in the face of the opposing contentions of other countries in the past, notably France and Germany. In his final reply to the Note, sent on the 10th of February, Sir Edward Grey frankly stated that ‘in the absence of some certainty that the rule would be respected by both parties to this conflict, we feel great doubt whether it would be regarded as an established principle of international law.’ Further, he pointed out certain new features in the circumstances in which the War was being waged which tended to show that an adherence to the old principle would be an unjustifiable restriction on our power of striking the enemy--(_i_) the existence of an elaborate machinery for the supply of foodstuffs for the use of the German army from overseas; (_ii_) the practical disappearance of the distinction between the civil population and the armed forces of Germany; (_iii_) the power taken by the German Government to requisition food for the use of the army, which rendered it probable that goods imported for civil use would be consumed by the army if military exigencies required it.