nient agreed, however, to have the case re viewed by a special Admiralty Court at St. Petersburg1 and consented to modify its in structions to its naval commanders on cer tain points. They were accordingly in structed on August 5 "not to sink neutral merchantmen with contraband on board in the future except in cases of direst necessity, but in cases of emergency to send prizes into neutral ports.2 These seizures and the destruction of neu tral prizes raise a number of very important questions in International Law, but it is our intention to reserve the most important of these, viz., those connected with the great subject of contraband of war for a separate discussion in our next paper. We shall, therefore, confine ourselves for the present to questions relating to the right of visit and search, of capture, the seizure of mails, and the destruction of prizes on the high seas. The most important question of Interna tional Law arising from the seizures in the Red Sea is that of the status of the cruisers belonging to the Volunteer Fleet of the Rus sian Navy. It was not, as frequently stated in the newspapers, the question as to whether 'The Vladivostok Prize Court rendered a de cision justifying the sinking of the vessel. See London Times (weekly ed.) for August 12, 1904. The British Government refused, however, to be satisfied with this verdict. 'Chicago Tribune for August 6, 1904. In her reply of August 12 to the British representations, Russia is reported to have refused to recede en tirely from her position as set forth in her "Prize Regulations," and to have reserved the right to destroy, in cases of emergency, neutral vessels carrying contraband. At the same time she is said to have assured Great Britain that no more neutral vessels would be sunk unless cir cumstances should render it impossible to bring them before a prize court. St. Petersburg dis patch to the Chicago Tribune for August 12, 1904. The British Cabinet still adheres to its original contention. Russia's recent reply to the British protest on the subject of contraband is said to include a refusal of the British demands in the case of the Knight Commander. It is understood that Russia still continues to maintain that her admiral was justified in sinking the vessel. See New York Times for September 20, 1904.
these vessels had the right to pass through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles with or without the distinct purpose of being- con verted into warships. That is a question of international policy and treaty interpretation rather than of International Law.1 The right of visit and search of all neutral merchantmen on the high seas by all law fully commissioned4 warships of a belliger ent Government is one which has never, so far as we are aware, been denied by any one. least of all by Great Britain, the great cham pion of belligerent rights on the high seas. As Lord Stowell, perhaps the greatest prizecourt jurist the world has ever seen, said in 1799 in the famous case of the Maria? "the right of visiting and searching merchant ships on the high seas, whatever be the ships, "According to a series of great international treaties, warships are not permitted to pass through the Straits, but merchant vessels are ex pressly permitted to do so. The present rule goes back to the London Treaty of 1841. which sanctioned the ancient rule of the Ottoman Em pire forbidding all foreign ships of war from en tering these waters. These stipulations were re affirmed by the Treaty of Paris (1856), the Lon don Conference (1871), and the Treaty of Berlin (1878). It has been claimed that Russia and Tur key entered into convention in 1891 or 1901 (?) to permit the passage of the Straits by these ves sels, but Premier Balfour recently disclaimed all knowledge of such an agreement in the House of Commons. Certain it is that Russia has been in the habit for some years of sending these ves sels through the Straits under her merchant flag-. The British Government appears to have been saving its rights by protests. The vessels of modern Volunteer Fleets or Auxiliary Navies occupy a new and somewhat anomalous, although fully established, position in modern warfare and International Law. They are in theory merchantmen when nations are a't peace, but may readily be converted into war ships in time of war. Those belonging to Russia have crews which are subject to naval discipline and are under the control of officers of the Rus sian Navy. Originally built by a great voluntary subscription, shortly after the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78, they are at all times in the service of the State to which they belong, and are used for military, as well as for commercial purposes. '"In the absence of a commission, a right of search and capture does not exist as against neu trals." See Taylor, International Public Lav, p. 497, and the cases there cited, "i Robinson, 359.
