Count Bismarck undertook that the owners of the ships should be indemnified, and Lord Granville did not press for anything further.

Such action, if it took place outside of belligerent territory, would not be tolerated for a moment.
The application of these principles to the case of submarine cables would appear to be, to a certain point at any rate, perfectly clear.
Telegraphic communication with the outside world may well be as important to a State engaged in warfare as similar means of communication between one point and another within its own territory.
Just as an invader would without scruple interrupt messages, and even destroy telegraphic plant, on land, so may he thus act within the enemy's territorial waters, or, perhaps, even so far from shore as he could reasonably place a blockading squadron.

It may be objected that a belligerent has no right to prevent the access of neutral ships to unblockaded portions of the enemy's coast on the ground that by carrying diplomatic agents or despatches they are keeping up the communications of his enemy with neutral Governments.

But this indulgence rests on the presumption that such official communications are "innocent," a presumption obviously inapplicable to telegraphic messages indiscriminately received in the course of business.

It would seem, therefore, to be as reasonable as it is in accordance with analogy, that a belligerent should be allowed, within the territorial waters of his enemy, to cut a cable, even though it may be neutral property, of which the _terminus ad quem_ is enemy territory, subject only to a liability to indemnify the neutral owners.
The cutting, elsewhere than in the enemy's waters, of a cable connecting enemy with neutral territory receives no countenance from international law.