It is bound to stand aside, and make no claim to protect from the recognised consequences of their acts such of its subjects as are engaged in carriage of contraband.

So far as the neutral Government is concerned, its subjects may carry even cannon and gunpowder to a belligerent port, while the belligerent, on the other hand, who is injured by the trade may take all necessary stops to suppress it.
Such is the compromise which long experience has shown to be both reasonable and expedient between the, in themselves irreconcilable, claims of neutral and belligerent States.

So far, it has remained unshaken by the arguments of theorists, such as the Swedish diplomatist M.Kleen, who would impose upon neutral Governments the duty of preventing the export of contraband by their subjects.

A British trader may, therefore, at his own proper risk, despatch as many thousand tons of coal as he chooses, just as he may despatch any quantity of rifles or bayonets, to Vladivostok or to Nagasaki.
It by no means follows that British shipowners may charter their vessels "for such purposes as following the Russian fleet with coal supplies." Lord Lansdowne's recent letter to Messrs.

Woods, Tylor, and Brown is explicit to the effect that such conduct is "not permissible." Lord Lansdowne naturally confined himself to answering the question which had been addressed by those gentlemen to the Foreign Office; but the reason for his answer is not far to seek.