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ance, the destination is to the enemy. If consigned to some entrepôt, or place in a country which cannot oppose it, to the agents of the enemy, there waiting to receive it, the destination is hostile.

1472. The real destination (which includes consignment) is the question, and not merely that on the papers; but that on the papers must be accepted, unless there is good ground for believing it to be fictitious; and it matters not how near the port of real destination may be to the hostile country, or how likely the articles may be to proceed thence on a hostile destination: during their transit to a neutral port they cannot be interfered with as contraband of war. He who suspects must endeavour to intercept them after they have begun their hostile progress. As the allies on each side of the warfare constitute one common belligerent, the allies on each side are common enemies to the allies on the other, and if munitions of war are destined to any of the allies on the one side, they are contraband as to each of the allies on the other.

1473. A destination from either a neutral port to the belligerents, or from one port to another of the belligerent or his allies, is of course hostile.

1474. The ship is on her lawful business in carrying her contraband cargo; she is guilty of no offence against her own laws or the belligerent; she is proceeding to the best market to sell her wares. The belligerent has, on the ground of self-defence, the right to intercept her, to take her into his port, and to deprive her of the dangerous cargo. In another page we shall see how ruthlessly he treats her. But his right is to intercept her in what he calls her criminal voyage; that voyage ended, she cannot be impeached for her supposed offence; she is entitled to sail to her next destination unsuspected and unassailed.

SECTION 5. PRE-EMPTION AND ANGARIE.

1475. Pre-emption is alleged to be a belligerent right to

appropriate at a price the cargo of a neutral destined to the enemy's port, either when that cargo is of doubtful character, or when the captor wants it for himself or his nation.

1476. It cannot be regarded as a right, but it may be conveniently accepted upon proper terms as a compromise, when the cargo is such as to be likely to prove useful to the enemy for the purposes of war. The terms are sometimes settled by treaty fixing the profit which the captor shall allow, such as ten or more per cent., after allowance for freight, and consideration of all other circumstances. When the terms are not fixed, regard should be had to the probable profit which would have been made in the market of its destination, with sometimes perhaps, in case of justifiable suspicion, some allowance for the danger it has escaped.

1477. The Act 17 Vict. c. 18 (sec. 8), authorizes the Lords of the Admiralty, their officers and agents, without proceeding to condemnation, to purchase for the public service, and directs the customs officers to permit the entry and landing of, naval and victualling stores laden on board the vessels of foreign nations, and intended to be carried to the ports and countries at war with the Queen, whereby the enemy might be supplied with the material to build, fit out, and provision ships of war, in case such vessels should be taken and brought into the ports of Great Britain.

1478. But as to the right of the belligerent to take the neutral's cargo, because he or his nation wants it, because it is necessary for his military forces, because there is a famine in the land; it is the right of the robber, the pirate, the buccaneer; the right of superior force to satisfy its necessities by any atrocious crime. If he lay his hand on the innocent cargo, let him pay the enhanced price of goods purchased to satisfy such necessities, or that of the market for which they were destined, if they would have sold there at a still higher price.

1479. ANGARIE also is miscalled a belligerent right. It

is the forcible employment of neutral, as well as national, private vessels for purposes of war, as in the conveyance of troops, ammunition, or stores. The right so to employ the national ships may be justified by municipal law; but all the arguments as to its legality, or its legality under pressing necessity, with full compensation to the owner, establish only the right of the robber, who violates the law with a strong, and more or less liberal, hand.

1480. It can hardly be too often repeated that a nation can neither acquire to itself, nor confer on its adversary, any right against neutrals by making war.

SECTION 6. INNOCENT COMMERCE.

1481. In strictness, all commerce between a neutral and a belligerent is innocent, for they are friends, and have a right to traffic with each other; but the word innocent has been used, and for want of a better may be retained, to describe that commerce which, except on the ground of blockade, the adverse belligerent has no right to interrupt. The word guilty is also used, not as indicating guilt in the merchant, but for want also of a better mode of description, to denote contraband; that which, irrespective of blockade, the adverse belligerent has a right to interrupt.

1482. In treating of innocent commerce, we are therefore, although this division of the subject is convenient, continuing the consideration of contraband, for all that is not contraband is innocent. There are subjects of commerce which have been treated as unlawful, although not classed under the definition of contraband of war. It may be convenient to class those subjects under another head, and to call it prohibited commerce, that which has been condemned irrespective of the rightfulness of the condemnation.

1483. It has been asserted that the neutral was not entitled to acquire and carry on-1st, a traffic which the belligerent was obliged wholly or partially to abstain from car

rying in his own ships, especially if that traffic had been interdicted to others previously to the war; we may call this acquired commerce: 2ndly, the coasting trade between the belligerent's ports; we may call this belligerent's coasting trade 3rdly, the trade between the belligerent's homeports and his colonies, or between his colonial ports: we may call this his colonial trade. The principles affecting the coasting and colonial trade are the same, they may therefore be considered together.

1484. It has been asserted-1st, that a neutral was not entitled to carry in his ships cargo belonging to the enemy; 2ndly, that a neutral was not entitled to avail himself of the enemy's ships for the conveyance of his own goods.

1485. All these propositions have been more or less the subjects of controversy and dispute; they may be treated under the following heads, that is to say:-1. Acquired commerce. 2. Enemy's coasting and colonial trade. 3. Enemy's goods in neutral ship. 4. Neutral goods in enemy's ship.

1486. ACQUIRED COMMERCE.-It has been held that a neutral is not entitled to embark in a trade with the colonies of the adverse belligerent which could no longer be carried on by that belligerent, by reason of the difficulties in which he was involved in the war, particularly where such trade had been interdicted before the war (Princessa); as where a nation had prohibited all traffic, except by its own subjects, with one of its colonies. Such a decision is not likely again to occur. It is impossible to find any justification for the doctrine. Not only is such trade but a slender compensation to the neutral for the inconveniences occasioned to him by the war, and an accident like those which interfere with him in other respects, but it has no relation to the principle which forbids the neutral to render the belligerent military aid. It is carried on, so far as the neutral is concerned, exclusively for his own benefit; and as to the adverse belligerent, his subjects merely buy and sell innocent

commodities, which perhaps they could not otherwise acquire or dispose of, but from which they derive no military assistance. If the greater or less need of such commodities, or the greater or less distress or inconvenience occasioned by the want of them for civil purposes, warrant the adversary in capturing the neutral trader, he is warranted in the prohibition of all trade. A belligerent acquires no right to mete out or measure the limits or development of the commerce of his neutral friend; it is affected, in many respects prejudicially, in a few beneficially, by the presence of war.

1487. COASTING AND COLONIAL TRADE.-It has been held that the ships of a neutral are not entitled to carry the traffic which would or might otherwise have been conveyed by the enemy's ships from one of his ports to another, especially if such traffic had been previously engrossed and conducted in, or restricted to, the belligerent's own vessels. Immanuel.

1488. This in some respects differs from the condition of acquired trade. In some cases the neutral ships may convey cargoes wholly or partly purchased by neutral merchants; in other cases they may convey cargoes wholly or partially the property of enemies. While the rule that enemy's goods in neutral vessels were liable to condemnation prevailed among some nations, the question was seriously affected by the distinction.

1489. The argument against the acquisition of new traffic by the neutral was of course applied to this subject. In addition, it was said that the neutral mixed himself up, and became associated with, the belligerent. This argument is certainly of no value, for the neutral is a friend of each belligerent, and his subjects have a right, in all peaceable occupations, to mix as much as they please with the subjects and peaceful affairs of either. It was said that it greatly aided the enemy by facilitating the communication and dealings between his ports. To this we reply that the

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