This is "neutralisation" only in a limited and vague sense of the term, the employment of which was indeed carefully avoided not only in the Convention itself but also in the diplomatic discussions which preceded it.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant, T.E.HOLLAND.
Brighton, October 4 (1898).
THE SUEZ CANAL Sir,--Your correspondent "M.B.," if he will allow me to say so, supports this morning a good case by a bad argument, which ought hardly to pass without remark.
It is impossible to accept his suggestion that the article which he quotes from the Treaty of Paris can be taken as containing "an international official definition of neutralisation as applied to waters." The article in question, after declaring the Black Sea to be "neutralisee," no doubt goes on to explain the sense in which this phrase is to be understood, by laying down that the waters and ports of that sea are perpetually closed to the ships of war of all nations.

It is, however, well known that such a state of things as is described in the latter part of the article is so far from being involved in the definition of "neutralisation" as not even to be an ordinary accompaniment of that process.

Belgium is unquestionably "neutralised," but no one supposes that the appearance in its waters and ports of ships of war is therefore prohibited.

The fact is that the term "neutralisee" was employed in the Treaty of Paris as a euphemism, intended to make less unpalatable to Russia a restriction upon her sovereign rights which she took the earliest opportunity of repudiating.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant, T.E.HOLLAND.
Brighton, October 6 (1898).
THE SUEZ CANAL Sir,--Will you allow me to reply in the fewest possible words to the questions very courteously addressed to me by Mr.Gibson Bowles in his letter which appeared in _The Times_ of yesterday?
1.

It is certainly my opinion, for what it is worth, that the full operation of the Convention of 1888 is suspended by the reserves first made on behalf of this country during the sittings of the Conference of 1885.