Chapter VII

The extension of the doctrine of continuous voyage, and the prevention of all sea-borne trade to or from Germany: those are the two main problems. The remainder are smaller things, although in many ways interesting and important. In all of them, I think, the central fact is that we have extended some existing doctrine of international law to meet the special situations produced by this war. I do not say that in all cases we have decided rightly. Sir Edward Grey has definitely offered to submit to a convention after the war the whole question of what is called "The Freedom of the Seas," and such a convention will probably settle some of these points in our favour and some against us. At present there is no convention either existing or possible. There is no fixed code of the sea and never has been. We have to use our own tribunals, which administer international law to the best of their ability according to precedent. They have on certain occasions decided that our government has gone wrong and can be compelled to pay damages; they have decided that certain orders in council were against international law and have disallowed them. They have, I may note in passing, declined to admit the plea of the Crown that it was following an American precedent which was afterwards embodied in an act of the United States Congress, on the ground that the said precedent and act were too oppressive. The United States claimed that the government could requisition any goods or ships which had been captured by their fleet, without previous trial.[1] When the convention comes to sit on these questions which we have tried to settle, they will probably, as I said before, decide some for and some against us; but I am confident that they will not find that our courts have acted with either levity or rapacity.

I mention summarily the chief remaining points. We treat "bunker coal of enemy origin" as contraband; and Mr. Bullard considers this as absolutely the very worst thing we have done. He quotes ancient precedents to show that "things needful for the working of the ship or comfort of the crew" are not to be treated as contraband. But the rulings in question all date from before the time of steam and refer to sailing ships. Coal is admittedly in a special position, and international law has not yet pronounced upon it.

Thus far, then, our "very worst" offence is not so serious. But perhaps it is our motive that is so infamous? Our motive is simple. As explained above, we do not allow traders to carry through our lines goods intended for the enemy, and we ask all traders for an assurance that they are not doing so. If they refuse to give this assurance, and if further we find them buying enemy coal, we treat them as if they had been buying any other enemy goods. What does the enemy do to ships from England or Russia in the Baltic? And do we ever think of complaining?

[Footnote 1: Judicial Committee of Privy Council, in the _Zamora_ case, April 7, 1916.]

We examine neutral mails. This seems a bad case. We have actually a rule of the Hague Convention against us, just as all the belligerents have--or have only just missed having--in the matter of aeroplanes. The Convention maintains the inviolability of all mail-bags, and used to forbid all dropping of explosives from the air. Yet I feel some confidence that any future conference will recognize that both these rules are "unemployable," and will justify our action about the mails. The old precedents do not apply at all. There has never been in any previous war anything approaching the present network of commercial and political correspondence across the Atlantic. Suppose in the Civil War there had been large settlements of Confederates in Mexico and in Canada, who were engaged in plots against the United States: Is it to be believed that President Lincoln would have refrained from opening the captured mail-bags passing between Canada and Mexico? A German in Denmark or Sweden arranges for an Indian in San Francisco to come to England with a false American passport in order to murder Sir Edward Grey: is he to have the right of sending and receiving letters, unhindered, under the eyes of the British fleet? Plots about contraband are of course much commoner. Are we to be allowed to search ships for nickel and rubber, but forbidden to interfere with these plotters' mail-bags? The rules and the precedents of other wars are here against us, but I must say that such a complete change in conditions seems absolutely to demand a change of rules.

"The closing of the Suez Canal to neutrals is a measure for which no military necessity has been shown." Mr. Bullard does not seem to question its legality, and I have not tried to find out exactly what the rights of either Egypt or Great Britain or the Suez Canal shareholders may be. But as for the military necessity, surely a child can see it. To block the Canal would be worth some millions of dollars to the enemy. A much smaller sum would suffice to induce a dozen Greeks, or Swedish, or even unprejudiced Dutch skippers to play certain tricks which I need not name, but which might make the Canal unusable for several weeks.

Mr. Bullard ends with a number of vaguely prejudicial statements, largely in the form of innuendo or parenthesis. He seems really unable to understand the conditions produced by war. He says we regard it as "moral for neutrals to help England but a deadly sin to trade with Germany." Of course it has nothing to do with sin. We do not fire at German men-of-war because we think them immoral, but because they are our enemies. We do not confiscate cargoes of rubber consigned to Germany because it is essentially immoral for Germans to use rubber. We only say to every neutral trader, "If you trade with Germany we will not trade with you." Or rather that is the extreme limit of what we say. The opposite conduct was once considered possible, but seems to us of the present generation a little dishonourable. It makes us a little ashamed when we learn that Napoleon's armies were often clad in cloth from Yorkshire and boots made in Northampton. The view of the British Government at that time was that it was good business to make money by supplying the enemy and use the proceeds for defeating him. It is a possible view, and apparently is the view that appeals to Mr. Bullard. And doubtless it would enable both ourselves and certain neutrals to make more money. But--well, we do not like it, and do not believe that in the end it pays.