Hawke's Bay Herald THURSDAY, MAY 10, 1877.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XX, Issue 3902, 10 May 1877, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald THURSDAY, MAY 10, 1877.

The diplomatic communications between Paissia and England appear to be assuming a dangerously hostile tone. It may be that Lord Derby merely ntends to intimate to Prince Gortsehakoif that an active alliance between England and Russia, to carry out the programme of the Constantinople Conference, need not be dreamt of, and to explain why such a project is altogether out of the question. But when the representative of one Power intimates to the representative of another that treaty stipulations are, in his view, being violated, the relation between the two Powers can hardly be any longer regarded as friendly. Mr Ward Hunt, it is true, a month or two ago assured the House of Commons that the relations between England and Russia were most friendly. We cannot help remembering, however, that Lord Clarendon gave a precisely similar assurance in April, 1853, on the very eveof the outbreak of the Crimean war. The involvement of England in war, at any rate, is not so remote a contingency but that it behoves us to view the subject iv such of its aspects as concern us most nearly. Among them, first and foremost, is the probable position of English commerce in such a contingency.

The abandonment, by the " Declaration of Paris," of the right formerly insisted upon by England to take an enemy's goods out of a neutral ship, formed the subject of an interesting debate in the House of Commons on the 2nd of March last. The debate was opened by Mr Percy Wyndham, who moved a resolution affirming the desirabilit}' of " "withdrawing from the declaration signed at Paris on the 16th of April, 1556, on the subject of maritime belligerent rights." Mr Wyndham urged that it had been shown by the experience of hundreds of years that the only way in which a maritime nation could wage war effectively was by the destruction of the commerce of its opponents. It was argued, in opposition to Mr Wyndham's resolution, that although the seizing of an enemy's goods in a neutral ship might be an effective -way of carrying on a war, yet, on the whole, the evils and inconveniences of exercising the right more than counterbalanced the advantage to be gained, and the House negatived the motion by a large majority. Commenting on the debate. The Times points out how embarrassing would be the position of England, in the event of her being at war, if she were to enforce the old rule. "We should at once," it says, " make all the neutrals of the world our enemies. The United States, in particular, wo\ild not allow us to take out of their ships the goods of an enemy carried by them as bailees; and we should have to light over again the war of 1812, with the difference that the claim for immunity would now cover goods instead of men. In the end, too, we should have to give up the pretence of capturing goods as we have given up the pretence of taking way men because they were English born. We have solemnly admitted that a man may change his nationality provided he does it in good faith and due form : and we should come to admit that a belligerent because he was at war with another Power was not entitled to harass a neutral friend of both by stopping his ships on the high seas to prevent his pursuing an innocent carrying trade. We did insist upon this right for centuries, but it is condemned upon every just principle of international