The American Government have also recently made an emphatic protest
on the same lines, and have clearly laid down the principles involved. It cannot, they say, be admitted that the absence of proof, in its nature impossible to make, can justify the seizure or condemnation of goods which are merely conditionally contraband. "If it were otherwise, all neutral commerce with the people of a belligerent State would be impossible ; the innocent would suffer inevitable condemnation with the guilty." We do not wish to say anything which may increase the difficulties of the situation, and we still trust that the Russian Government, even if they continue to assert their novel principle in words, will refuse to put it into practice. If, however, they should unhappily insist on acting on it, it is useless to disguise the gravity of the situation which must arise.
