Whatever suspicions we have entertained we have not so far made these a ground for detaining any ship carrying cotton, but should we have information giving us real reason to believe in the case of a particular ship that the bales of cotton concealed copper or other contraband the only way to prove our case would be to examine and weigh the bales, a process that could be carried out only by bringing the vessel into a port. In such a case, if examination justifies the action of his Majesty's Government, the case shall be brought before a prize court and dealt with in the ordinary way. That the decisions of British prize courts hitherto have not been unfavorable to neutrals is evidenced by the decision in the Miramichi case. This case, which was decided against the Crown, laid down that the American shipper was to be paid even when he had sold a cargo, cost, insurance, and freight, and when the risk of loss after the cargo had been shipped did not apply to him at all. It has further been represented to his Majesty's Government, though this subject is not dealt with in your Excellency's note, that our embargoes on the export of some articles, more especially rubber, have interfered with commercial interests in the United States. It is, of course, difficult for his Majesty's Government to permit the export of rubber from British dominions to the United States at a time when rubber is essential to belligerent countries for carrying on the war, and when a new trade in exporting rubber from the United States in suspiciously large quantities to neutral countries has actually sprung up since the war. It would be impossible to permit the export of rubber from Great Britain unless the right of his Majesty's Government were admitted to submit to a prize court cargoes of rubber exported from the United States which they believed to be destined for an enemy country and reasonable latitude of action for this purpose were conceded. But his Majesty's Government have now provisionally come to an arrangement with the rubber exporters in Great Britain which will permit of licenses being given under proper guarantees for the export of rubber to the United States. We are confronted with the growing danger that neutral countries contiguous to the enemy will become, on a scale hitherto unprecedented, a base of supplies for the armed soldiers of our enemies and for materials for manufacturing armament. The trade figures of imports show how strong this tendency is, but we have no complaint to make of the attitude of the Governments of those countries, which, so far as we are aware, have not departed from proper rules of neutrality. We endeavor in the interest of our own national safety to prevent this danger by intercepting goods really destined for the enemy without interfering with those which are "bona fide" neutral.