Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War Part 12

The United States declared that the validity of the right to seize goods on the ground of contraband could not be recognized "under any belligerent right of capture of provisions and other goods s.h.i.+pped by American citizens in the ordinary course of trade to a neutral port."[61]

[Footnote 61: For. Rel., 1900, p. 540.]

England declared: "Her Majesty's Government have not admitted liability in respect of any claims for loss or damage sustained ... in consequence of the delay in the delivery of the ... goods. But they have offered to purchase the flour on board by United States citizens.

Claims for redress for the non-delivery of the cargo appear to be a matter for settlement between such claimants and the s.h.i.+p which undertook to deliver. British subjects who owned goods on board, having no right to trade with the enemy, are not in the same position as foreign owners. The latter are not guilty of any offense in trading with the enemy from a neutral country unless the goods are contraband and are found on board a British s.h.i.+p in British territorial waters or on the high seas, _and are destined for the enemy's countries_."[62]

[Footnote 62: Mr. Broderick, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, speaking in House of Commons in regard to the _Mashona_ on March 19, 1900.]

With reference to trading with the enemy Great Britain attempted to extend the accepted doctrine of continuous voyages. She expressed herself as follows: "An ultimate destination to citizens of the Transvaal even of goods consigned to British ports on the way thither, might, if viewed as one "continuous voyage" be held to const.i.tute in a British vessel such a "trading with the enemy" as to bring the vessel within the provisions of the munic.i.p.al law."[63]

[Footnote 63: For. Rel., 1900, p. 609.]

The United States held that "the destination of the vessel being only such [British] ports ... the port authorities may presumably, and are a.s.sumed to be bound to, prevent transs.h.i.+pment through British territory of contraband destined for the Boers."[64]

[Footnote 64: For. Rel., 1900, p. 594.]

No contraband was shown, and the attempt which Great Britain made to extend the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1863 so as to apply to trading with the enemy cannot be considered to have been successful. The questions of international law involved in the seizures of flour and foodstuffs generally were not answered by the final arrangement between the Governments concerned. In his Message to Congress in 1900 President McKinley deplored the fact that while the war had introduced important questions the result had not been a "broad settlement of the question of a neutral's right to send goods not contraband _per se_ to a neutral port adjacent to a belligerent area."

Two things, however, were apparently admitted: (1) that a belligerent may declare flour contraband _pro hac vice_; (2) that a belligerent may detain neutral goods and divert them from their destination on a reasonable suspicion that they are intended for the enemy, subject to a claim for compensation including damage by detention.