not to be excepted from the provisions of Article (2). This, as has been shown, was a necessary consequence of the Declaration itself; any other attitude on the part of the French government would have given just ground for offense to Prussia. Thus, one of the three weaknesses became apparent. The disputes as to the right of the Germans to treat coal as contraband, which fill the British and Foreign State Papers relating to this period, showed, in some slight degree, how serious the second weakness might become, especially if England were to uphold the belligerent right against Germany, instead of Germany against England. From our point of view, however, the most interesting dispute was that which arose upon the meaning of the word "Privateering." On July 23, 1870, the Prussian government notified that of Great Britain that the Declaration of Paris was considered valid and to be observed "throughout the whole of the States of the North German Confederation."2 On the very next day (July 24), the King, acting under the advice of the Chancellor, issued a decree purporting to provide for the establishment of a volunteer navy. All German seamen and ship-owners were called upon to place themselves at the service of the fatherland. The vessels were to be hired by the state, and one-tenth of their value paid to the owners as deposit; in case of loss, the other nine-tenths was to be paid; in case of restoration, the one-tenth paid was to be reckoned as hire. The owner was to hire a crew, the crews were to enter the Federal navy for the war, wear its uniform and badge of rank, take oath to the articles of war, receive pensions at the regular standard, and, if desired, obtain per 1 Journal Officiel, July 25, 1870; Berthémy to Fish, Aug. 3, 1870, U. S. For. Rel. (1870), p. 136. See, similarly, the Russian decree of the 18th May, 1877, and the Turkish decision of the 1st of May, 1877. Br. and For. St. P., vol. 68, pp. 921, 924. 2 Bismarck to Loftus, Br. and For. St. P., vol. 60, p. 924. manent establishment in the navy as a reward for extraordinary service. The hired ships were to sail under the Federal flag, and to be armed and fitted out at public charge. Premiums from 50,000 thalers down were to be paid to such ships as should capture or destroy ships of the enemy; and these premiums were to be paid to the owners of the ships, to whom was to be confided the distribution in proper proportions amongst the crew. But for the provisions italicised, it would seem impossible to regard the proposed navy as an evasion of the Declaration of Paris. Those two provisions were certainly unfortunate. In its essence, and as it was doubtless honestly intended by the Prussian Government, the scheme was simply for the state to obtain ships for hire, and to increase its navy to a war footing by offering bounties to volunteers. The provision that the volunteers were to be procured by, and the bounties to pass through the hands of, the owners of the ships, who were mere contractors, who had nothing to do with the navy, and who ought to have been allowed, after surrendering their ships and receiving their hire, to drop out of the transaction altogether, was a most unwise and dangerous one, and lent an absurd appearance of private enterprise to a scheme which in its essence was nothing of the sort. The French government saw only the appearance, and protested. England was asked to intervene, and this fact would have shown Mr. Marcy, had he lived to see it, that since the Declaration of Paris every nation has not a right to declare what vessels shall constitute its navy; but the Law Officers of the Crown, to whom the matter was submitted by Lord Granville, were of opinion that there were "substantial distinctions" between vessels of the kind proposed and privateers, and Granville, in a polite note to the 1 British and For. St. P., vol. 61, p. 692. 2 De Lavelette to Granville, Aug. 20, 1870, ibid. French government,' declined to do anything more than admonish Prussia not to allow the distinction to fade. As a matter of fact, no Prussian volunteer navy was ever formed, but if it had been, no reasonable construction of the Declaration of Paris would have been violated. At most, the Prussian Government was too economical in employing the same persons as purveyors of ships and recruiting agents; but the vessels hired could not have been privateers for quite a number of reasons: (1) they were actually, by virtue of the contract of hiring, public vessels for the time being, fitted and armed and sent forth at the public expense; (2) their crews were actually public servants, having no right to cruise anywhere except under orders, and subject to the same discipline as the regular navy; and (3) they were designed for the work of a regular navy, and forbidden in fact to prey on private property at all. Under these circumstances the abuses which the first article of the Declaration sought to prevent, would have been quite impossible. But the action of Prussia confirms Mr. Marcy's prediction as to the use which weak maritime states, in the wars of the future, will make of their merchant marines, and gives us an idea just how much of privateering is, and remains, abolished. The Declaration of Paris is truly, as Mr. Marcy said, a half-way measure. It is inchoate, unfinished, and, it cannot be denied, somewhat faulty, as the first steps of all great reforms have been. But to call it an epoch-making event, or a red-letter day in the calendar of the Law of Nations, would be superfluous. Perhaps that which is to come-the abolition of all capture of private property at sea, including the abolition of commercial blockades-is easier than that which has already been accomplished. In International Law, as in other things, it is the first step that costs. But in honoring 'Granville to Lavelette, Aug. 24, 1870. Br. and For. St. P., vol. 61, p. 694. Walewski and Bourqueney, Buol and Hübner, Clarendon and Cowley, Orloff and Brunnow, Cavour and Villamarina, Manteuffel and Hatzfeldt, Aali-Pacha and MehemmedDjemil-Bey, as men well abreast of their time, it will always be a pleasure for Americans to remember our own Secretary of State, who was—we do not know yet how many years ahead of it. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Adams, John. Works. Boston, 1850-1856. Adams, Henry. History of the United States. N. Y., 1889-1893. Addison, W. M. Ought Private Vessels to be Exempt from Capture in Time of War? Baltimore, 1856. Aegidi & Klauhold. Frei Schiff unter Feindes Flagge. Hamburg, 1866. A General Collection of Treatys and Other Publick Papers (London, 1732). American and English Encyclopædia of Law. American Instructions for the Government of Armies in the Field. American Social Science Association Journal. American State Papers, Foreign Relations. American State Papers, Naval Affairs. Annual Register. (Dodsley's.) Anquetil. Motifs des Guerres. Paris, an VI. Azuni. Sistema Universale dei Principii del Diritto Maritimo dell 'Europa. Triest, 1797. Bancroft. History of the U. S. N. Y., 1884. Bello. Principios de Derecho Internacional. Caracas, 1847. Bergbohm. Die Bewaffnete Neutralität. Dorpat, 1883. Bluntschli. Das Moderne Völkerrecht. Nördlingen, 1878. Bouvier's Law Dictionary. Boston, 1880. British & Foreign State Papers. Bynkershoek. Quaestiones Juris Publici. Lug. Bat., 1751. Case of the U. S. at Geneva. Cauchy. Du Respect de la Propriété Privée. Paris, 1862. Chateaubriand. Études Historiques. Paris, 1852. Code of the Institute for Wars on Land. Coggeshall. History of American Privateers. N. Y., 1856. Cooper. History of the Navy of the U. S. N. Y., 1856. De Burgh. Maritime International Law. London, 1868. Doneaud. Histoire de la Marine Française. 3d ed. Paris, n. d. Emmons. Statistical History of the Navy of the U. S. Washington, 1853. Fauchille. La Diplomatie Française et la Ligue des Neutres de 1780. Paris, 1893. 381] 161 |