the fact that they harbored Japanese refu gees1 or whether caused by motives of mili tary expediency," does not seem to have been regarded as a serious matter by either of the neutra] governments concerned, al though there appears to have been some dip lomatic correspondence 'and, in one case at least, a claim fon the payment of demur rage.3 It is probable that the tempo rary detention for military purposes of neutral merchantmen in a beseiged or blockaded port, more particularly at the beginning of a war, would be regarded with a certain degree of leniency by friendly neu trals. A payment of demurrage by the belli gerent government to the neutral owners is probably the utmost that would be expected by the neutral Government4 under these circumstances. A much more serious matter was the stop ping and searching of a number of neutral merchantmen in the Red Sea by the Russian Mediterranean fleet on its return from its projected voyage to the Far East during the second week of the war. Three neutral col liers5 laden with steam coal, which was doubtless destined either directly or indi rectly for Japan, were seized and brought as prizes into the Gulf of Suez within Egyptian territorial waters. Here they were detained 'As reported in the case of the British steamer Wen Chow. See London Times (weekly edition), February 19, 1904. "The American steamship Pleiades was by some supposed to have been detained for strategic rea sons. See New York Times for February 14, 1904. 'We note that the Russian Government has granted compensation to the owners of a British vessel—the steamer Foxton Hall—for loss sus tained during her detention at Port Arthur in February. See New York Times for August 4, 1904. 'It would, of course, be different in the case of a war vessel. Two of them, the Frankly and the Ettrickdale, were British, and one, the Matilda, was Norwe gian. For a summary of the facts, see Lawrence, War and Neutrality, pp. H4f. The Russian Gov ernment has since agreed to indemnity by the owners of the British colliers Frankly and Ettrick dale. See New York Times for September 10, 1004.
for about four days, and in the meantime these waters were used as a base of anchor age from which to overhaul neutral vessels in spite of the protests of the Egyptian Gov ernment. The colliers were soon released however, in response to a telegraphic order from the Czar on the ground that these cap tures had been made before the Russian Government had formally declared coal con traband of war. The return of 'the Russian Mediterranean fleet to the Baltic, the continued inactivity ot the Baltic fleet, and the practical bottling up or blockade of the Russian fleet at Port Ar thur almost ever since the beginning of the war, left the control of the high seas and of contraband trade in the hands of the neutral nations and the Japanese except for an occa sional sortie by the Vladivostok fleet which ir.rlicted some serious damage upon Japanese transports. There seems, however, to have been no interference with neutral trade until the seizure of the Allantan on June 16 and the Cheltenham early in July" for the carriage of contraband. These seizures had excited some interest and controversy when the world was sud denly electrified by the news that two cruis ers, the Pctcrbnrg and the Smolensk, belong ing to the Russian Volunteer fleet in the Black Sea, had passed out of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles into the Mediterranean as merchantmen early in July (one of them flying the Red Cross flag), had passed through the Suez Canal, and were holding up and seizing neutral vessels in the Red Sea.7 These vessels had apparently passed through the Straits (as, indeed, appears to have been their custom for some years past), without protest from Turkey or the Powers; "These seizures will be discussed in our next paper. 7It was also learned that the Russian ^Hardship Chernomorets, a gun vessel belonging to the regular Black Sea fleet, had been sent through the Straits on July 16. but it was sub sequently stated that this vessel had gone to the Piraeus tn Greece on its usual voyage.
