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.