19.
The distinction, drawn in the same letter, between "carriage of contraband" and "enemy service," which has sometimes been lost sight of, was established in the case of _Yangtsze Insurance Association_ v.

_Indemnity Mutual Marine Company_, [1908] K.B.
910, in which it was held by Bigham, J., that the transport of military officers of a belligerent State, as passengers in a neutral ship, is not a breach or a warranty against contraband of war in a policy of marine insurance.

The carriage of enemy despatches will no longer be generally treated as "enemy service" since The Hague Convention, No.xi.of 1907, ratified by most of the Powers, including Great Britain, on November 27, 1909, by Art.

1 provides that, except in the case of breach of blockade, "the postal correspondence of neutrals or _belligerents_, whether of _an official_ or a private character, found on board a _neutral_ or enemy ship on the High Seas is inviolable." The case of the _Allanton_, which gave occasion for the letter of July 11, 1904, was as follows.

This British ship left Cardiff on February 24 of that year, with a cargo of coal to be delivered either at Hong-Kong or Sasebo.