and am as little desirous as he is that
London should rely for protection upon The Hague article, ambiguous as I
have confessed it to be; trusting, indeed, that our capital may be
enabled so to act at once in case of danger as wholly to forfeit such
claim as it may in ordinary times possess to be considered an
"undefended" town. Let the principle involved in Art. 25 be carried into
much further detail, should that be found feasible, but, in the
meantime, let us not for a moment relax our preparation of vertical
firing guns and defensive aeroplanes.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
Oxford, May 2 (1914).

The war of 1914 has definitely established the employment of
aircraft for hostile purposes, and, as evidenced by the
reception given by belligerents to neutral protests, the
sovereignty of a state over its superincumbent air-spaces.

On the bombardment of undefended places, _cf. supra_, pp. 30,
62, 67, 68; _infra_, pp. 97, 109, 112-123.

On the authority of International Law, _supra_, pp. 25, 66, 67;
_infra_, pp. 77, 114, 115, 137, 169.

* * * * *

SECTION 5

_Submarines_

GERMANY AND THE HAGUE

Sir,--One excuse for German atrocities put forward, as you report, in
the _Kolnische Zeitung_, ought probably not to pass unnoticed, denying,
as it does, any binding authority to the restrictions imposed upon the
conduct of warfare, on land or at sea, by The Hague Conventions of 1907.
It is true that each of these Conventions contains an article to the
effect that its provisions "are applicable only between the contracting
Powers, and only if all the belligerents are parties to the Convention."
It is also true that three of the belligerents in the world-war now
raging--namely, Serbia, Montenegro, and, recently, Turkey--although they
have (through their delegates) signed these Conventions, have not yet
ratified them. Therefore, urges the _Zeitung_, the Conventions are, for
present purposes, waste paper. The argument is as technically correct as
its application would be unreasonable; and I should like to recall the
fact that, in the important prize case of the _Moewe_, Sir Samuel Evans,
in a considered judgment, pointed out the undesirability of refusing
application to the maritime conventions because they had not been
ratified by Montenegro, which has no navy, or by Serbia, which has no
seaboard; and accordingly, even after Turkey, whi