But when Mr.Gibson Bowles is again within reach of Blue-books he will probably agree with me that the treaty need not, as he suggests, be "read as obliging the territorial Power, even when itself a belligerent, to allow its enemy to use the canal freely for the passage of that enemy's men-of-war." The wide language of Art.

1 (which is substantially in accordance with Mr.Gibson Bowles's reminiscence of it) must be read in connection with Art.

10, and without forgetting that, in discussing the effect of an attack upon the canal by one of the parties to the convention, Lord Salisbury wrote in 1887, "on the whole it appears to be the sounder view that, in such a case, the treaty, being broken by one of its signatories, would lose its force in all respects." Your obedient servant, T.E.HOLLAND.
Oxford, October 9 (1898).
THE CLOSING OF THE DARDANELLES Sir,--Now that the pressure upon your space due to the clash of opposing views of domestic politics is likely to be for the moment relaxed, you may, perhaps, not think it inopportune that attention should be recalled to a question of permanent international interest raised by the recent action of the Turkish Government in closing the Dardanelles to even commercial traffic.
I cordially agree, as would, I suppose, most people, with your leading article of some weeks since in deprecating any crude application to the case of the Dardanelles and Bosporus of _dicta_ with reference to freedom of passage through straits connecting two open seas.

It would, indeed, be straining what may be taken to be a general principle of international law to say that Turkey is by it prohibited from protecting her threatened capital by temporarily closing the Straits.
A good deal of vague reference has, however, been made in the discussions which have taken place upon the subject to "Treaties" under which it seems to be thought that trading ships enjoy, in all circumstances, rights of free navigation through the Straits in question which they would not have possessed otherwise.

I should like, therefore, with your permission, to state what seem to be the relevant Treaty provisions upon the subject, whether between the Powers constituting the European Concert collectively, or between Russia and Turkey as individual Powers.
As to what may be described as the "European" Treaties, it is necessary, once for all, to put aside as irrelevant Art.