The Hague Conference, therefore, left the matter where it found it, recording, however, among its "pious wishes" (_voeux_) one to the effect "that the proposal to regulate the question of the bombardment of ports, towns, and villages by a naval force should be referred for examination to a future conference." The topic is not a new one.

You, Sir, allowed me to raise it in your columns with reference to the naval manoeuvres of 1888, when a controversy ensued which disclosed the existence of a considerable amount of naval opinion in favour of practices which I ventured to think in contravention of international law.

It was also thoroughly debated in 1896 at the Venice meeting of the Institut de Droit International upon a report drafted by myself, as chairman of a committee appointed a year previously.

This report lays down that the restrictions placed by international law upon bombardments on land apply also to those effected from the sea, except that such operations are lawful for a naval force when undertaken with a view to (1) obtaining supplies of which it is in need; (2) destroying munitions of war or warships which may be in a port; (3) punishing, by way of reprisal, violations by the enemy of the laws of war.

Bombardments for the purpose of exacting a ransom or of putting pressure upon the hostile Power by injury to peaceful individuals or their property were to be unlawful.