hand that the Malacca, in addition to British Government stores, had on board munitions of war intended for the use of the Japanese, and that the captain of the Malacca had re fused to show the manifest of his cargo.1 The Russian Government, acting, it is said, in accordance with the personal wishes of the Czar and upon the advice of the French Gov ernment, finally (on July 21) consented to re lease the Malacca upon the assurance of the British Government that the war munitions on board the vessel were British Govern ment stores, after a perfunctory or pro forma examination of the cargo by a British and Russian consul.2 Russia also promised that no similar incident should occur in the future and agreed to instruct the officers of her Volunteer Navy to refrain from interference Avith neutral shipping in the future on the ground that the present status of the Vol unteer fleet was not sufficiently well-defined, according to International Law, to render further searches and seizures advisable." There was no agreement in principle on the broader question of the right of the passage оГ the Straits on the part of these vessels," and considerable excitement was caused in both England and Germany by the subse quent seizure of one German and several British ships4 in the Red Sea; but these seizThis is, however, emphatically denied by the Secretary of the Peninsular and Oriental Navi gation Company. See letter to the London Times for August 5, 1904. 'This examination was held at Algiers on July 27, and the vessel was released in accordance with this agreement. "This is based on Premier Balfour's statement to the House of Commons on July 28. See e.g. New York Times for July 29, 1904. The German Scandia and the British Ardova and Farinosa. The Ardova is said to have con tained military supplies consigned to the United States Government at Manila. As we write, the news reaches us that several British steamers have again been stopped and visited by cruisers of the Russian Volunteer Fleet. We are also informed of the extraordinary state ment made by Premier Balfour to a deputation of the London Chamber of Commerce to the ef fect that the British Government had ordered two cruisers from the squadron at the Cape of
ures seem to have been due to a failure on the part of the Russian Government to con vey to the captains of the Russian cruisers a new set of instructions in time to prevent such action. They were speedily released on the same terms as in the case of the Malacca. No sooner had the cases of the Russian detentions and seizures in the Red Sea been thus practically disposed of, than there was renewed excitement in consequence of the news that several neutral as well as Japanese merchant vessels had been sunk on July 23 and 245 by the Vladivostok squadron in one of its occasional sorties on the Pacific Ocean, —viz.; the Knight Commander, a British Good Hope to locate the Russian Volunteer steamers Smolensk and Petersburg without delay and convey to them the orders of the Russian Government that they must not further interfere with neutral shipping. He stated that this action was taken at the request of the Russian Govern ment. See New York Times for August 26, 1904. These orders have since been conveyed to the Russian cruisers by British vessels, and no further trouble is anticipated from their source. The British steamer Hifsang is also re ported to have been torpedoed by the Russians in Pigeon Bay, near Port Arthur, on July 16; but this act, which occurred in belligerent waters. does not seem to have excited much interest or controversy, and it belongs to an entirely diflferent order of phenomena from those discussed in the text. One reason given by the Russians for the destruction of the Hifsang was that the steamer refused to stop when ordered to do so. (See special cable to London and New York Times from Shanghai, July 26); another was that they mistook her for a Japanese vessel. (See Associated Press dispatch in New York Times for- August 5.) A British naval court of inquiry has exonerated the captain of the Hifsang and has found that he acted correctly in all respects. It is denied that he refused to stop when ordered to do so, and it is claimed that there was no contraband, and that there were no Japanese on board the vessel. See New York Times for August 24 and London Timtt (weekly ed.) for August 26, 1904. It will be seen from the above scattered and fragmentary reports that it is not at all clear what the charges against the Hipsang really are. In any case, whether carrying contraband or en gaged in an unneutral service, she should not have been destroyed, except in case of necessity or of continued or obstinate resistance to arrest. If the finding of the British naval court of in quiry is correct, it would seem that the owners of the vessel are entitled to indemnity and the British Government to an apology.
