The Hague Conference as a Basis.
The call of an international parliament cannot be set down as wholly improbable, and the way to that goal lies through the more frequent calls and assemblages of The Hague conference and by committing to it the task of codifying in the form of treaties the leading branches of international law. One of the subjects of its deliberations will be the reciprocal rights and duties of neutrals and belligerents.
A more serious difficulty will arise in agreeing upon some criterion to determine when articles of dual utility, for war or peace, may be treated by a belligerent as absolutely contraband of war.
There is the further question of the prize courts and of the arrest and seizure by a belligerent's cruisers of neutral ships and cargoes.
We may expect that another and kindred question will come before the conference—the question of the immunity from capture at sea of all non-contraband private property, whether owned by the citizens or subjects of neutral or belligerent states.