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MEANS OF RESTRICTING NEUTRAL TRADE.

CHAPTER XXXI.

OF THE MEANS BY WHICH THE OBJECT OF RESTRICTING

NEUTRAL TRADE MAY BE EFFECTED.

If we are inflexibly bent on adhering to our present line of action, and if a substitute must be found for these rules by which their object of restricting neutral trade shall really be attained, the first thing that must be done, as it appears to me, is to substitute deeds for intentions. We must fix upon the acts we are to forbid and forbid them absolutely, without the least reference to the intentions, or supposed or pretended intentions, with which they are performed. Then, in like manner, what we promise we must promise to do, and not merely promise to try to do. No man can tell whether or not we have tried; and that question is sure to leave dissatisfaction behind it, whichever way it is decided. But it is quite easy to ascertain whether or not we have succeeded; and if we do not succeed in doing what we have deliberately and solemnly pledged ourselves to do by international treaty, or even what by municipal legislation we have held out to other States the hope that we would do, it is quite right that we should pay damages for our failure.

Now, if this view of the matter be correct, I do not, as regards the first of the Three Rules, see that we can stop 1 Ante, p. 157.

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short of the absolute prohibition of trade in ships between neutrals and belligerents. I believe it to be quite impossible to draw a workable distinction between a ship of war and a ship that may be used for war. If we would prevent the sale of the one, we must forbid the sale of the other. Then it is equally in vain, I fear, to say that ships of war may be built in our dockyards for sale to belligerents, but that they must not sail from our ports, because ships are built for sailing, and they must sail from the ports at which they are built.

The device of sailing them with a neutral crew, and taking in their fighting crew and armament beyond neutral waters, was rightly dismissed by the arbitrators at Geneva as a mere subterfuge. On the whole, it humbly appears to me that there are but two rules which admit of being carried out with any approach to certainty.

(a) To forbid trade in ships between neutrals and belligerents, which involves, of course, the principle of forbidding trade in everything else.

Or (b) to recognise the neutral character of ships of war, built or offered for sale by private neutrals, so long as they remain within neutral waters, and as no acts of hostility are committed by their crews.

On their quitting neutral waters, they would, of course, be liable to the right of search to determine nationality, and this would expose them to seizure by the opposite belligerent, even if the right of search for munitions of war were abolished. The first of these alternatives, however, besides being a further step in what I believe to be the wrong direction of prohibiting

trade, is one which, though far clearer and more definite, is probably not much more enforceable than the first rule of Washington. It is one thing to prohibit trade, and another thing to prevent trade. A ship is, no doubt, a large object, far more difficult of secret transference than a gun. But as the building of ships in neutral dockyards for neutral markets must be permitted to go on as usual, it would be exceedingly difficult to prevent some of them from finding their way into the possession of belligerents, probably willing to pay twice the price for them that any neutral customer would offer. "Where there is a will there is a way," and it is surprising how money not only shapes the will but sharpens the wits. Depend upon it, that rule is the best which makes no extraordinary call either on the self-denial or on the sincerity of ordinary men; and that rule, in this matter, is the rule of free trade in ships, and if in ships in arms, and if in arms in everything! We cannot stand still where we are, because our present rules satisfy nobody. We must either go back to the common law and develop the principles which it bequeathed to us, or we must go on in the course into which we have drifted, which is at variance with the spirit of our time, and every step in which threatens to land us in new complications. If we have not been able to watch our dockyards, how are we to watch our foundries, our workshops, our banks? How are lands that are parted by no "silver streak" to watch their frontiers? or those that are, to watch their coasts and their future tunnels? Probably as France has been wont to watch her Spanish frontier, or as Russia watched her Servian frontier

in 1878 Mr Beach Lawrence tells us that America already shrinks from the prospect of surveillance1 of thousands of miles of sea-coast in future wars, which the Treaty of Washington imposes on her. Is it not, then, a sickening thought that England should have made herself responsible for every blunder which may be made by an official, perhaps a mere barbarian, in permitting the sale of a ton of coals in an empire on which the sun never sets, and that at some future time the chief occupation of her ships of war may consist in chasing her own merchantmen over the seas? The celebrated American jurist to whom I have just referred, has farther said, that "if the rights of neutrals have been made to yield to exorbitant belligerent pretensions, there cannot be a more patriotic act on the part of an American than to arrest, as far as his abilities extend, by the assertion of the received doctrines of international law, the operations of hasty decisions."

Let us, from our side, bring science to the aid of patriotism, and the progress of which we have talked so much and so vainly in this matter may become a reality.

1 Belligerent and Sovereign Rights, by W. Beach Lawrence, p. 53.

CHAPTER XXXII.

OF THE LAWS OF NEUTRALITY WHICH LOGICALLY RESULT FROM THE ASSUMPTION THAT, WHILST ALL INTERFERENCE BY THE NEUTRAL STATE AND ITS CITIZENS IS FORBIDDEN, FREEDOM OF INTERCOURSE, BOTH AS REGARDS ENLISTMENT AND TRADE BETWEEN PRIVATE NEUTRALS AND BELLIGERENTS, IS PERMITTED.

1st, Obligations of the neutral State in its corporate capacity. a. The neutral State in its corporate capacity shall not fight on the side of either belligerent, either on land or at

sea.

b. It shall not permit the belligerents to fight, to arm or to drill troops, or to man or equip ships of war, or for war, within its jurisdiction.

c. It shall not permit any person in any branch of its service, whether military or civil, to fight, to enlist in the ranks, or to aid either belligerent.

d. It shall not give, lend, or sell any object which may aid either belligerent in the prosecution of the war, or permit its servants or officers to do so, either in their public capacity or as private persons; and as every object which the belligerent desires must, more or less, possess this quality:

e. It shall not trade, or permit its officers or servants to trade, with either belligerent, even in articles which do not