I am, Sir, your obedient servant, T. E. HOLLAND. Oxford, December 16 (1919).
Sir,--Let me assure Lord Robert Cecil that I am perfectly serious in giving expression to a long-felt wish that the Treaty of Peace could be relieved of articles relating exclusively to an as yet to be created League of Nations, and in proceeding to indicate the steps that must be taken if this reform is to be effected.
It can hardly be necessary also to assure Lord Robert that I am fully aware of the formidable, though perhaps not insuperable, difficulties which would beset any efforts to carry out my suggestions. He may have inferred so much from my letter of the 16th, in which, treating the question whether it is now too late to attempt a remedy for the existing state of things as beyond the competence of an outsider, I describe it as one which can be answered "only by the diplomatists whose business it is to be intimately in touch with the susceptibilities of the various nations concerned."
On a point of detail, I am surprised that Lord Robert is unwilling that the contents of Part XIII. should be removed to their natural context, on the ground that the Labour organisation might be annoyed if this were done. I am, however, confident that the organisation is too intelligent not to see that it would lose nothing if the articles in which it is interested were made an integral part of a Convention constituting a League of Nations; the League being already solely charged with giving effect to the articles in question.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant, T. E. HOLLAND. Oxford, December 20 (1919).
Sir,--Professor Alison Phillips is not quite accurate in attributing to me a belief that the task of amending the Treaty of Versailles is "not beyond the powers of competent diplomatists." No such belief is expressed in my letter of December 16, in which I was careful to admit that the question, "whether it is now too late to attempt" the reform which appears to me to be desirable is one "which can be answered only by the diplomatists."
I am, Sir, your obedient servant, T. E. HOLLAND. Oxford, January 5 (1920).
The four letters next following were suggested by the ambiguous character of the blockades instituted by France against Siam in 1893, by the Great Powers against Crete in 1897, and by Great Britain, Germany, and Italy, against Venezuela in 1902. The object, in each case, was to explain the true nature of the species of reprisals known as "Pacific Blockade," and to point out the difference between the consequences of such a measure and those which result from a "Belligerent Blockade." A fifth letter, written with reference to the action of the Netherlands against Venezuela in 1908, emphasises the desirability of more clearly distinguishing between war and reprisals. On the various applications of a blockade in time of peace, see the author's _Studies in International Law_, pp. 130-150.