be grounds of suspicion that, after one or more successive voyages, the cargo will be ultimately consigned to a port actually blockaded.

"The rule thus established," to quote again the language of the Hon. William M. Evarts, "gives to the cruisers and the Prize Courts of belligerents a wider and a more uncontrolled sweep of interference with commerce, between the proscribed neutral ports, than they possess in respect to commerce between neutral and belligerent ports.

"A paper blockade of the neutral ports, not tolerable towards the enemy's ports, capture and sending in for adjudication vessels that cannot by possibility convict or acquit themselves on the primary proofs-for they cover only the present and innocent voyage-condemnation upon intent of future voyage, not commenced, necessarily upon extraneous proofs, if at all, all these strange consequences follow from this new doctrine of belligerent right and neutral subserviency.

"It is, in nature and substance, an enlargement of the domain of good prize of war to the theatre of neutral trade between neutral ports, upon the fiction of possible continuous voyages for cargo, yet to be named and framed."

If upon two such fundamental questions of the Law of Nations as contraband of war and breach of blockade, a great Power is at liberty to make innovations at its discretion in its own interest as a belligerent, evil days are, I fear, in store for the weaker States as neutrals.

It may not be the intention of the United States to embody this "prospective doctrine of continuous voyages' into its general Prize Law. The circumstances of the Southern Rebellion were exceptional, and much allowance must be made for the Supreme Court, if its Judges have occasionally overstepped the strict limits, within which the Practice of Nations has confined the application of certain principles.* It was an observation of Albericus Gentilis in

That the minds of the Judges of the Supreme Court were unwittingly in

the infancy of modern Prize Law, that the English Judges found much of their law in their own breasts, and that it could not be reasonably expected that foreign States should always defer to it. There is probably no case on record on which there has been such a harmony of opinion amongst the jurists, both of Europe and of America, that belligerent right has been overstrained, as in the case of the cargo of the Springbok. I have already cited the observation of Professor Bluntschli* that the new doctrine menaces neutral trade with restrictions more severe than those to which it was exposed under the exploded system of paper blockades. Dr. Louis Gessner,† Imperial Councillor of Legation at Berlin, has pronounced himself to be of the same opinion, and the latter eminent jurist has recently re-affirmed his original view. The Hon. W. Beach Law

fluenced by patriotic feelings has been avowed by one of its most distinguished members the late Associate-Justice, Samuel Nelson, who, in a letter to the Hon. W. Beach Lawrence, dated 4th August, 1873, and since made public (see "Notice sur la Vie et les ŒŒuvres de M. William Beach Lawrence, Gand, 1876," pages 62 and 63), wrote as follows:-"The truth is that the feeling of the country was deep and strong against England, and the Judges, as individual citizens, were no exception to that feeling. Besides, the Court was not then familiar with the law of blockade." This avowal was made with reference to the condemnation of the Circassian shortly after Chief Justice Chase had passed from the Department of State to the Chief Justiceship. The Court condemned the Springbok by the casting voice of the Chief Justice.

* Le Droit International Codifié, Paris, 2me Edition, § 835, note 5. † A Juridical Review of the case of the British Barque Springbok.

"Es ist jetzt zunächst noch eine überaus gefährliche Theorie des Blokadebruches zu erwähnen, welche während des Sezessionskrieges von den amerikanischen Prisenhöfen proklamirt worden ist. Dieselbe besteht in Anwendung der Theorie von der Einheit der Reise' (the Doctrine of Continuous Voyage) auf den Blokadebruch. Die englischen Juristen hatten diese Theorie namentlich in früherer Zeit gegen neutrale Schiffe zur Anwendung gebracht, welche auf Umwegen mit den Kolonien kriegführender Mächte Handel trieben. Die amerikanischen Prisenrichter benutzten für die Ausdehnung dieser elastischen und zu gewagten Beweis führungen herausfordernden Doktrin den in der englischen Praxis vielfach befolgten Grundsatz, dass für den Thatbestand des Blokadebruches nur dolose Absicht des neutralen Schiffes (consilium, non actus aliquis) erforderlich sei. Sie deduzirten, wenn

rence,* of Newport, Rhode Island, Dr. Heffter, of Berlin, M. Carlos Calvo, of Paris, Mr. Westlake, Q.C., of London, M. G. Rolin-Jaequemyns, of Gand, Professor Goudsmit, of Leyden,t have all declared their opinion, that the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of the cargo of the Springbok has gone beyond the just limits of belligerent right.

To conclude: The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of the Springbok's cargo would appear to be a retrograde movement in the laws of war, increasing their rigour against neutrals on the high seas, at a time when nations are endeavouring in common concert to mitigate the rigour of those laws against enemies on the land. There is, indeed, a disposition on the part of some writers to hold that the application of steam power to maritime navigation has so much facilitated the conveyance of contraband of war and breaches of blockade, that the die blosse Absicht, also der Umstand, dass ein neutrales Schiff überhaupt die Reise nach einem neutralen Hafen auf offener See angetreten habe, bereits einen Blokadebruch involvire, so sei es konsequent, den That bestand eines solchen auch in dem Falle anzunehmen, wenn die Reise auf Umwegen erfolge und der nächste Bestimmungsort des Schiffes ein nicht blokirter feindlicher oder neutraler Hafen sei."- Kriegführende und Neutrale Mächte, von Dr. Ludwig Gessner, Berlin, Carl Heymann, 1877, p. 41.

* Mr. W. Beach Lawrence, in his letter to M. Rolin-Jaequemyns, of 30th September, 1873, says, "the recent adjudications of our Supreme Court have even gone beyond the cases arising out of the Rule of fifty-six.' In all cases invoked (from the English Prize Courts) as precedents, the intention to violate the restrictions was established by the actual sailing from the intermediate port, whereas the capture now under consideration (Springbok) was made during the voyage to the neutral port; and in a case where, if the voyage terminated there, there could be no possible pretext for illegality."

The opinions of the law officers of the Crown, Sir Robert Phillimore (Queen's Advocate), Sir W. Atherton (Attorney-General), and Sir Roundell Palmer, now Lord Selborne (Solicitor-General), taken on behalf of the British Government, and the opinions of Mr. George Mellish, Q.C. (the late Lord Justice Mellish), and Mr. W. Vernon Harcourt, Q.C. (Sir William Vernon Harcourt, M.P.), taken on behalf of the owners of the cargo of the Springbok, have been published. They concur in holding that there was a miscarriage of justice in the condemnation of the cargo of the Springbok.

necessities of modern warfare justify belligerents in imposing greater restraints than heretofore upon the commerce of neutrals, but it is open to great doubt whether the introduction and rapid development of steam navigation has disturbed the balance of power between the belligerent cruiser and the neutral trader on the high seas in any sense unfavourable to the former. On the contrary, the lesson taught to the world by the extinction of the West African slave trade is quite the reverse, for after the steam cruiser appeared in the African waters, the trade in human beings, as slaves, became unprofitable, although it was attempted to be carried on in steam slave-ships. It is also a reasonable presumption that the Powers which have agreed to the fourth article of the Declaration of Paris on the subject of blockades, which should be binding on neutrals, have not been of opinion that the introduction of steam navigation has rendered it more difficult to maintain an effective blockade than heretofore. The pretext of increased necessity has, to the ear of the belligerent, a seductive charm, but it is the duty of Prize Courts to be on their guard against such pretexts, for if carried to the extreme, they would annihilate the commerce of neutrals. Lord Stowell has well observed, that it is the duty of tribunals of the Law of Nations "not to admit, because one Nation has thought fit to depart from the common usage of the world, and to meet the notice of mankind in a new and unprecedented manner, that they are on that account under the necessity of acknowledging the efficacy of such a novel institution, merely because general theory might give it a degree of countenance independent of all practice from the earliest history of mankind." There is a further difficulty in the matter not to be overlooked, that the doctrine of "Continuous Voyages," as applied prospectively to the cargo of the Springbok is not merely at variance with the jus consuetudinarium of Nations, but may on other grounds The Fladoyen, 1, Ch. Rob., p. 141.

raise difficulties, if not conflicts, between belligerents and neutrals. It is the opinion of many eminent jurists, that the doctrine is totally opposed to the Declaration of Paris, which by requiring a force before the blockaded port sufficient to prevent effectually all ingress into it would appear to indicate that it is only in the neighbouring waters, that the police of an effective blockade can be properly exercised.* Whatever may be the correct interpretation of the Fourth Article of the Declaration of Paris, and whatever effect may be practically given to it by the Powers who are parties to it, one thing may be affirmed for certain, that it was the intention of those who drew up that Declaration, to mitigate and not to aggravate the restraint imposed upon the commerce of Neutrals by the blockade of an enemy's ports. Great Britain and the United States of America had, until then, been content to enforce against neutral merchants, the confiscation of their property upon proof of some constructive attempt upon their part to violate a blockade; it has remained for the younger sister, under her extraordinary difficulties, to initiate the doctrine of a prospective intention, on the part of a neutral merchant, to violate a blockade, and to subject him to the confiscation of his property, not upon the evidence of any present voyage of the ship and cargo, in which the ship and cargo have been

The Hon. W. Beach Lawrence, in commenting on the proceedings and decisions of the Mixed Commission of 1873, censures "the encroachments made upon neutral commerce by the unjustifiable application of the law of blockade to vessels seized at the moment of their departure from a neutral port bound for another neutral port, however remote that may be from any blockaded port, under the mere suspicion that their cargoes, after having been discharged at a neutral port, may be ultimately designed for a blockaded port, or otherwise placed at the disposition of the enemy. This pretence, carried to the extreme, would annihilate the commerce of neutrals; it is totally opposed to the doctrine of the Declaration of Paris, which, by requiring a force before the blockaded port sufficient to effectually prevent ingress to it, would appear to indicate that it is only in the surrounding waters that the police of the blockade can be exercised." Extract from a letter to M. G. Rolin-Jaequemyns dated 30th September, 1873.