s the converted merchant ship what may be
called the dog's privilege of taking a first bite with impunity, but it
makes it very difficult for any second bite to be taken. Such a vessel
may as a merchant ship have obtained coal and other supplies in a
neutral port before conversion, but she cannot after conversion return
to the same or another neutral port and repeat the process; nor can she
easily play the game which some have attributed to her of being a
merchant ship one day, a warship the next, and a merchant ship again on
the third. Further, as a weapon to be employed against England in
particular, the method of conversion here prescribed would seem to be
largely discounted by the fact that this country could, if it were so
disposed, convert as many merchant ships into warships in this way as
all the rest of the world put together.

It will be argued, perhaps, that a belligerent when hard pressed will
not respect the provisions of a mere paper Convention, but will, if it
suits him, treat them as non-existent. In that case it is not easy to
see why he should ever have accepted and ratified them. The preamble of
this very Convention recites that "whereas the contracting Powers have
been unable to come to an agreement on the question whether the
conversion of a merchant ship into a warship may take place upon the
high seas, it is understood that the question of the place where such
conversion is effected remains outside the scope of this agreement, and
is in no way affected by the following rules." In other words some of
the very Powers which have ratified the Convention as it stands
categorically declined to add to it a provision forbidding altogether
the conversion of a merchant ship into a warship on the high seas. If
this does not mean that, while reserving their freedom of action in this
respect, they are prepared to abide by the provisions of a Convention
which they have not less categorically accepted and ratified we are
driven to the absurd conclusion that all International Law is a nullity.

Secondly, the practical disappearance of the sailing ship from the seas
has profoundly modified all the pre-existing conditions affecting the
attack and defence of commerce afloat. In the days of sailing, all
vessels were compelled to sail according to the wind, that is, to take
devious courses whenever the wind was adverse, so that some of them
might at all times be found scattered over very wide areas of the seas
connec