The August number of The Law Maga zine and Review (London) discusses three interesting questions of international law which have arisen in the present conflict in the Far East: Firstly, the international position created by two Powers being engaged in hostilities in the territory of two other States, Corea and China, especially the latter, which re mains neutral though having an army sta tioned near the boundary between Man churia and the rest of China; and the con sequent hindrance of the rights of other neutrals by treaty with China to trade at ports like Niuchwang which lie within the sphere of military operations. For practical purposes as regards neutrals Manchuria may be treated as Russian territory by oc cupation, whether with or without the con sent of China: and at Niuchwang Russian military jurisdiction has been asserted, and neutral warships have absented themselves from the port. To the extent that such places are treated by the belligerents as falling within the sphere of warfare, the rights of neutrals must for the time yield to the necessities of war. Secondly, the reported proclamation of the Russian Viceroy that any person trans mitting news by wireless telegraphy from the Russian lines (including newspaper cor respondents) are liable to be treated as spies, presumably because thereby news might thus be communicated directly or in directly to the hostile forces. It is no doubt competent to the general of an army to give notice that the will punish any dis closure or information given by any one neutral or belligerent within the lines of the army or the limits of its operation to any other person, but no Power signatory of the Hague Convention can justify expand ing the word "spy" (with its capital penalty) to include a person so offending. The Con vention provides that only persons can be considered as spies who, acting secretly or under false pretexts, gather, or try to gather, information in the zone of opera tions with the intention of communicating
it to the other belligerent: and the term is not applicable to persons sent in balloons to transmit despatches or generally to maintain communication between different parts of an army or a territory (Art. 29). By the same Convention (Arts. 30 and 31) a spy taken in the act cannot be punished without previous examination, and if he re gains his army and is then captured, he is to be treated as a prisoner of war, and in curs no risk for his former espionage. By the Russian regulations issued for this war the attention of the Russian military au thorities is directed to this among other In ternational Conventions. In the FrancoGerman war the German military authori ties took similar action to that of Admiral Alexeieff, against persons passing over the German lines in balloons, not indeed pun ishing them capitally but imprisoning them; but this claim is now negatived as above. Whatever the origin of capital pun ishment for espionage, its present justifica tion is no doubt based on the feeling that the strongest possible deterrent is required for insidious methods of warfare; but this is an additional argument against arbitrary construction of the term. Modern opinion is more mercifully inclined, and regards im prisonment as sufficient in most cases. Thirdly, the use of floating mines by bel ligerents which, whether laid or not in the territorial waters, are found on the high seas and endanger neutral shipping. The view has been expressed by high legal au thority, and even officially, that such mines may be legitimately laid in territorial waters, but not in the open sea, and it has been suggested that if mines have been legitimately so laid and are afterwards car ried out to sea by weather, the belligerent is not responsible for injury which they may do to neutrals, like a stray shot fired at sea which accidentally hits a neutral ship. Un der modern conditions of naval warfare it seems unreasonable for neutrals to insist on the ordinary three-mile fringe of territorial waters being the limit of offensive military operations, especially when the coast is in
