(2) The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war.

(3) Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under enemy's flag.

(4) Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective-that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy.

In 1870 Prussia decreed the establishment of a Voluntary Marine, which the highest legal authorities have held not to be technically a violation of the Declaration, though certainly depriving it, so far as this clause is concerned, of almost all real value. In fact, to abolish privateering you must go further and abolish the capture of private property at sea.

The Select Committee of the House of Commons on Merchant Shipping, which sat in 1860, and which consisted of Mr. Baring, Mr. Lindsay, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Horsfall, Mr. Dalglish, and other eminent commercial authorities, came to the conclusion that the time had arrived when all private property, not contraband of war, should be exempt from capture at sea.' This country has at all times a much larger amount of property afloat than any other nation, and has consequently an enormous interest at stake.

The Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, in a petition presented to the House of Commons, have since expressed their conviction that, even if the course proposed would deprive our Navy of a certain amount of power, it would on the other hand shield us from the infinitely greater injury which the fleets of any strong maritime State would inflict upon our Mercantile Marine in time of war.

The late Mr. Baring, when this question was before the House in 1862, asked the pertinent questions: What country has most commerce afloat, most property to be seized? Surely England. What country would gain most by the preservation of that property? England. You say that your object in war is to injure your enemy. What country could be so much injured in war through her commerce as England?

Let us now consider what we have at stake and what we could gain in a war. Take, for instance, two countries-Germany and Spain.

I take Germany first.

Our rule as we know is that our fleet should be stronger than those of any other two countries, but our Mercantile Marine is greater than that of all European countries put together. Our tonnage is over 12,000,000 tons; that of the rest of Europe taken together is a little less, that of Germany being under 3,000,000.

Moreover, we must remember that a substantial amount of foreign shipping is insured in English insurance companies.

Take, again, exports. Ours are over 566,000,000l., or deducting those to Germany-our best foreign customer-say, 510,000,000l.; those of Germany are 367,000,000l.-in round numbers 100,000,000l. less than ours, though her area is so much larger, and her population 16,000,000 greater. Moreover, we are now dealing only with oversea commerce, and if we deduct the amount sent by Germany overland and her trade with us, amounting to 279,000,000l., her exports to oversea countries are under 90,000,000l., as compared with ours of 510,000,000l.

Then take Spain. Her exports are 43,000,000l., and deducting those which go overland less than 12,000,000%.

Is it not idle to suppose that any injury we could inflict on Spanish commerce could have any effect on a war with that country?

Moreover, we must remember that under the Declaration of Paris (see ante pp. 1136-7), to which we are parties, we could not take enemies' goods if they were in a neutral ship. The flag covers the goods.

We may be sure, then, that Germany and Spain, or any other country with which we were unfortunately at war, would secure their exports by sending them in neutral vessels.

On the other hand, we could not do so, because there are not enough neutral vessels to carry our immense commerce.

Our Mercantile Marine, moreover, would be in great danger. The Germans have made arrangements to arm their swift ocean steamers, which would be free to prey on our commerce, and especially on our shipping. This would not do Germany any good, but would do us a great deal of harm.

The following figures' give the tonnage belonging to the principal countries:

This shows how much we have at stake compared to any possible enemy.

T

* Statistical Abstract, Foreign Countries, Cd. 6099, 1912, p. 34.

Consider, again, the question of imports.

Our insular position makes the matter one of vital importance to us. Our imports come entirely by sea; those of other countries to a great extent by land.

Our imports of raw materials would therefore be subject to a war risk which would raise their price, but not that of similar materials going to neutral countries. This would place our manufacturers at a great disadvantage.

Consider, also, the problem of our food. For the same reason the price would be raised, to our great disadvantage. I am not, indeed, one of those who take an extreme view as regards our food supplies. While Paris and Brussels have plenty to eat, London is not likely to starve. Nevertheless, an increase of price would greatly increase the sufferings of the poor, and under existing circumstances an increase of price would be inevitable.

Moreover, as I have attempted elsewhere to show in more detail, our investments abroad are so immense, and so widely spread, that it is almost impossible to attack any foreign country without injuring our own property. We talk of foreign nations, but in fact there are no really foreign countries. The interests of nations are so interwoven, we are bound together by such strong, if sometimes invisible, threads, that if one suffers all suffer; if one flourishes, it is good for the rest.

This is especially true in our own case.

England has immense investments all over the world; our merchants are in all lands; we have built railways and factories in almost every country. It would have a melancholy interest if we could calculate how much the Russo-Japanese war has cost the rest of Europe. In Argentina alone our investments amount to more than 150,000,000l. It may almost be said to be an English Colony. The fire in San Francisco cost our English fire offices over 10,000,000l.

We do not, I think, realise how greatly we are interested in the prosperity of foreign countries. People often speak of them as if their condition was immaterial to us-in fact, however, their welfare is of great importance to us. In the first place they are nearly all good customers. Then, again, if the world's harvests are good, our people get their bread for less, and their wages go further; if there are good rains in Australasia, woollens are cheaper.

In the Crimean war our fleet went to the Baltic and burnt a considerable quantity of Russian produce-that is to say, it was produced in Russia. But whose property was it? Much of it belonged to English merchants and was insured in English fire offices. Take, again, the depredations of the Alabama. We paid 3,000,000l. for the damage done to American shipping-that is to

say, shipping under the American flag. But that very shipping was much of it insured in England. The company of which I was chairman had to pay many thousands, and then we were taxed to pay the American Government for the injury done to our own property.

The extension of the Declaration of Paris, therefore, so far from diminishing the utility of our Navy in war, would set it free for objects-from a military point of view-of even greater importance than that of protecting our commerce.

Moreover, it must be remembered that Germany's excuse for the sudden expansion of her Navy was the desire to protect her commerce. If, however, private property at sea were declared free of capture and seizure, she would, I presume, be willing to reduce her sea forces, and both countries would save many millions a year.

Under the existing system we have much to lose and little, or nothing, to gain; if private property were made free of capture and seizure we should lose little, if anything, and gain much.

From all these considerations it is of vital importance to us that private property at sea should be free of capture and seizure.

It will not, I hope, be supposed that I ignore the moral and religious arguments, but for the present I am only dealing with the material aspects of the proposal.

AVEBURY.

THE OUTLOOK IN THE NEAR EAST

(I)

FOR EL ISLÂM

THE problems offered for solution by the population of the Turkish Empire are too various and intricate to be disposed of in a book, much less an article. The most that one can do is to lay stress on factors of importance and warn the student against certain pitfalls. Some leading factors in the present situation, as well as its most crying danger, seem to be ignored.

What is the cause of the Mohammedan fanaticism, expressed in brutal massacres of subject Christians, which was unknown before the nineteenth century? The Mohammedans of old were not inhuman. Compare their conquest of Jerusalem, for instance, when the Holy Sepulchre and all the churches were respected, with that of the Crusading armies with its awful massacre; their treatment of the subject Christians with that endured by heretics and Jews in Europe; and it will be evident that the religion of the sword in those days was more tolerant than that of peace and love. In the Bûlâc edition of the Arabian Nights, in the fourth volume, there is a story different from every other in the book, having in every word the air of truth. It is of a merchant who repaired to Acre at a time of truce, and while there became enamoured of a Frankish woman, the young wife of an officer in the Crusading host, but was restrained from wronging her by thoughts of God. Afterwards he came across her as a captive, and, as she was then lawful to him, married her. The story, told with absolute simplicity, with no aspersions on the faith or customs of the Crusaders, is an odd contrast to the Frankish stories full of the foul Paynim,' 'the false perjurious Mahound,' &c. Yet that the Crusaders recognised the honour of the Moslems, esteeming them above the Eastern Christians, can be shown from history; as also that the Eastern Christians loved them better than the Frank.

Secure under the Mamaluke sceptre,' says Gibbon, writing of the schism of the Eastern Church, 'the three Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem' (the Patriarch of Constanti