des armes aux mains de ceux qui doivent s'en servir pour frapper. La loi naturelle, qui impose ce devoir, n'a pas fait de distinction entre le commerce actif et le commerce passif. Elle ne pouvait en faire, car l'un et l'autre ont le même résultat, celui de donner à l'un des belligérants le moyen de nuire à l'autre. Ce devoir est absolu; la restriction qu'il impose s'étend à toutes les manières de fournir à l'un des combattants l'arme dont il veut frapper son ennemi. C'est un devoir d'humanité; et il n'est pas moins inhumain de vendre des instruments homicides dans le port de Livourne que de les transporter dans celui de Londres ou de Marseille. La vente des denrées de contrebande aux belligérants est donc prohibée sur le territoire neutre, de la même manière et par le mème motif que le transport de ces denrées dans les ports des peuples en guerre. Professor Casanova, in his recent work, "Del Diritto Internazionale," adopts the views of M. Hautefeuille. This difference of opinion arises from the different point of view from which each party considers the question. The one party assume that to supply a belligerent with articles of warlike use, though in the way of trade, is to take part in the war; assuming which, they say with truth, that it is the same thing whether the objectionable articles are sold to the belligerent in the country of the neutral or in his own. The other party, starting from the principle that, according to natural justice, the rights of the neutral should be left free and untouched by the wars of others, look on the existing restraints on the freedom of his commerce as encroachments on his rights, and considering these restraints as arising entirely from convention, deny the illegality of any trade, which the actual practice of nations does not prevent. The great authority of Chancellor Kent, and of the majority of writers, is in favor of the latter view. But, in truth, the question does not depend on the lucubrations of learned professors or speculative jurists. However authoritatively these authors may take upon themselves to write, and however deserving their speculations may be of attention, they cannot make the law. International law is that to which nations have given their common assent, and it is best known as settled by their common practice. Practice in former wars. Now, in all wars, neutrals have traded at home and abroad in articles contraband of war, subject always in the latter case to the chance of capture and confiscation. As I have already said, no government has ever been sought to be made responsible on that account. Assuredly, no nation has ever asserted the freedom of commerce in this respect more broadly than the United States, or acted up to its principles with greater pertinacity. On the breaking out of the war between France and England in 1793, after a proclamation of neutrality by General Washington, then President, Mr. Jefferson, then Secretary of State, thus writes to Mr. Hammond, minister of Great Britain to the United States: American authori The purchase of arms and military accouterments by an agent of the French government in this country, with an intent to export them to France, is the subject of another of the memorials; of this fact we are equally unin- ties. formed as of the former. Our citizens have been always free to make, vend, and export arms. It is the constant occupation and livelihood of some of them. To suppress their callings, the only means perhaps of their subsistence, because a war exists in foreign and distant countries, in which we have no concern, would scarcely be expected. It would be hard in principle, and impossible in practice. The law of nations, therefore, respecting the rights of those at peace, does not require from them such an internal derangement in their occupations. It is satisfied with the external penalty pronounced in the President's proclamation, that of confiscation of such portion of these arms as shall fall into the hands of any of the belligerent powers on their way to the ports of their enemies. To this penalty our citizens are warned that they will be abandoned, and that even private contraventions may work no inequality between the parties at war, the benefit of them will be left equally free and open to all. 1 British Append.x, vol. v, p. 242. The collectors of the customs at the different ports were instructed that The purchasing and exporting from the United States, by way of merchandise, articles commonly called contraband, being generally warlike instruments and stores, is free to all parties at war, and is not to be interfered with. If our own citizens undertake to carry them to any of these parties, they will be abandoned to the penalties which the laws of war authorize.1 In 1842, Mr. Webster writes: It is not the practice of nations to undertake to prohibit their own subjects from trafficking in articles contraband of war. Such trade is carried on at the risk of those engaged in it under the liabilities and penalties prescribed by the law of nations or particular treaties. If it be true, therefore, that citizens of the United States have been engaged in a commerce by which Texas, an enemy of Mexico, has been supplied with arms and munitions of war, the Government of the United States, nevertheless, was not bound to prevent it, and could not have prevented it without a manifest departure from the principles of neutrality, and is in no way answerable for the consequences. Such commerce is left to its ordinary fate, according to the law of nations.` In his message to the American Senate, in December, 1854, President Pierce declares : The laws of the United States do not forbid their citizens to sell to either of the belligerent powers articles contraband of war, or to take munitions of war or soldiers on board their private ships for transportation; and, although in so dɔing the individual citizen exposes his property or person to some of the hazards of war, his acts do not involve any breach on national neutrality, nor of themselves implicate the Govern ment. Thus, during the progress of the present war in Europe, our citizens have, without national responsibility therefor, sold gunpowder and arms to all buyers regardless of the destination of those articles. Our merchantmen have been, and still continue to be, largely employed by Great Britain and France in transporting troops, provisions, and munitions of war to the principal seat of military operations, and in bringing home the sick and wounded soldiers; but such use of our mercantile marine is not interdicted either by the international or by our municipal law, and therefore does not compromise our neutral relations with Russia.3 Chancellor Kent, in his Commentaries, says: It was contended by the French nation in 1796 that neutral governments were bound to restrain their subjects from selling or exporting articles contraband of war to the belligerent powers. But it was successfully shown, on the part of the United States, that neutrals may lawfully sell at home to a belligerent purchaser, or carry themselves to the belligerent powers, contraband articles, subject to the right of seizure in transitu. This right has since been explicitly declared by the judicial authorities of this country. The right of the neutral to transport, and of the hostile power to seize, are conflicting rights, and neither party can charge the other with a criminal act.+ In 1862, on the occasion of the French invasion of Mexico, complaint was made by M. Romero, the representative of the Mexican government at Washington, of the French being allowed to purchase horses and mules in the United States for the purpose of the war. A long correspondence ensued between M. Romero and Mr. Seward, in which the latter vigorously maintains what he calls "the settled and traditional policy of the country." He says: It is not easy to see how that policy could be changed so as to conform to the views of M. Romero without destroying all neutral commerce whatsoever. If Mexico shall prescribe to us what merchandise we shall not sell to French subjects, because it may be employed in military operations against Mexico, France must equally be allowed to dictate to us what merchandise we shall allow to be shipped to Mexico, because it might be belligerently used against France. Every other nation which is at war would have a similar right, and every other commercial nation would be bound to 1 British Appendix, vol. v., p. 269. Letter to Mr. Thompson, Webster's Works, vol. vi, p. 452; British Appendix, vol. V, p. 333. British Appendix, vol. v, p. 333. * Kent's Commentaries, vol. i, p. 142. respect it as much as the United States. Commerce, in that case, instead of being free or independent, would exist only at the caprice of war. traband of war by the United States. As regards the purchase of articles of war, the United States have not scrupled to purchase arms and munitions of war in Purchase of conother countries when need required it. At the commence- Government of the ment of the civil war, the Government being short of arms, agents were sent to England to procure them in large quantities. Other agents bought arms in different countries on the continent. Figures are given in the British counter-case which appear to bear out the statement that "the extra supplies of warlike stores thus exported to the northern ports of the United States during the civil war are estimated to represent a total value of not less than £2,000,000, of which £1,500,000 was the value of muskets and rifles alone." Mr. Adams, in a conversation with Earl Russell on the 22d May, 1862, when the latter, in answer to his remonstrances as to supplies sent out from Great Britain to the Confederate States, referred to the large supplies of similar materials obtained on the part of the United States, naively answered that "at one time a quantity of arms and military stores had been bought, as a purely commercial transaction, for the use of the Federal Army, but that the practice had been discontinued at his suggestion, because it prevented him from pressing his remonstrances against a very different class of operations carried on by friends and sympathizers with the rebels, and that the United States had, instead, bought largely from Austria ;"" because," adds Mr. Adams, "that government had never given any countenance to the insurgents."2 It thus appears that the continental governments also did not consider the sale of arms by their subjects as any infringement of the law of nations. Sale of ships. It seems to me, therefore, that the law relating to contraband of war must be considered not as arising out of obligations of Result of discusneutrality, but as altogether conventional; and that by the existing practice of nations, the sale of such things to a belligerent by the neutral subject is not in any way a violation of neutrality. Then, how stands the matter as to ships of war? In principle, is there any difference between a ship of war and any other article of warlike use? I am unable to see any. Nor can I discover any difference in principle between a ship equipped to receive her armament, and a ship actually armed. A ship of war implies an armed ship; for a ship is not actually a ship of war till armed. Of the authors I have cited, and who hold ships of war to be contraband of war, no one of those who wrote before these disputes between the United States and Great Britain had arisen, with the exception of M. Hautefeuille, makes any distinction between ships equipped to receive their armaments, and ships actually armed. M. Hautefeuille, who, as we have seen, refuses to a ship equipped for armament, but not armed, the character of contraband, treats the equipping and arming as a violation of neutrality; but he gives no reason and cites no authority, and seems to me herein-I say it with the utmost respect-inconsistent with himself. Professor Bluntschli, in the work already cited, lays down, on the subject of ships furnished to a belligerent by the subjects of a neutral power, the following rules: 1 British Appendix, vol. v, p. 336. Professor Blunt British counter-case, pp. 52-54. British Appendix, vol. vi, pp. 153, 155, 158, 173. United States Documents, vol. i, p. 536. In article 763 of his proposed code, he says: L'état neutre ne doit pas seulement s'abstenir de livrer des navires de guerre à l'une des puissances belligérantes; il est aussi tenu d'exercer une surveillance rigoureuse et d'empêcher que des particuliers n'arment des navires de guerre sur son territoire et ne les livrent à l'un des belligérants. In a note he adds: En temps de paix, un état peut évidemment vendre des navires de guerre à un autre, ou recourir à l'industrie privée des états étrangers. Mais pendant la guerre, la fourniture de navires de guerre constitue évidemment un appui et un renfort accordé aux belligérants. Si l'intention de le faire résulte des circonstances, on devra considérer ces actes comme contraires aux devoirs des neutres, et l'état lésé pourra agir en conséquence. In article 764 he says: Il suffit que l'intention de venir en aide à l'un des belligérants soit manifeste, pour que l'état neutre soit tenu d'intervenir, alors même que l'armement du navire de guerre ou du corsaire ne serait que préparé ou commencé. In a note he subjoins: Il n'est pas nécessaire que le navire soit déjà armé. Lorsque les constructeurs, tout en prétendant frêter un navire de commerce, ont l'intention de l'armer en guerre, et lorsque cette intention peut être constatée, ou du moins est vraisemblable, cet acte constitue une violation des lois sur la neutralité. Mais lorsque cette intention ne peut pas être démontrée, on ne saurait incriminer le fait de transformer en navire de guerre un navire de commerce construit sur un chantier neutre et acheté plus tard par un négociant d'un des pays belligérants. (Wheaton, Intern. Law, p. 562.) Il en est autrement lorsqu'un navire de guerre est vendu à l'un des belligérants à titre d'entreprise purement commerciale ou industrielle; il y aura dans ce cas contrebande de guerre, mais cet acte ne constituera pas une violation des devoirs des neutres.” I must observe that these rules, which are of a very stringent character, are not supported by any reasoning of the author, or by any juridical authority. I might add, that there is no ground for saying that they have been generally accepted as international law. Even so distinguished a man as Professor Bluntschli cannot give laws to the world from the professorial chair. Moreover, as I understand him, Professor Bluntschli draws a distinction between the sale of ships with the intention of assisting a belligerent, and of ships sold in the course of a purely commercial transaction. The first two cited articles would, from the general terms in which they are framed, appear to apply to ships of war by whomsoever they may be supplied to the belligerent; but from the note to section 764 and the reference to section 765, herein before cited, as to the sale of arms and munitions of war in the country of the neutral, I gather that the professor means to draw a distinction between ships made over to a belligerent, whether by sale or otherwise, for the purpose of assisting his cause, and ships of war sold to a belligerent by neutral subjects in the way of trade. Opinion of Dana. This is the view taken by Mr. Dana in a note to his edition of "Wheaton's Elements of International Law," which has been reprinted in the documents appended to the American case: Our rules do not interfere with bona-fide commercial dealings in contraband of war. An American merchant may build and fully arm a vessel, and provide her with stores. and offer her for sale in our own market. If he does any acts as an agent or servant of a belligerent, or in pursuance of an arrangement or understanding with a belligerent, that she shall be employed in hostilities when sold, he is guilty. He may, without violating our law, send out such a vessel, so equipped, under the flag and papers of his own country, with no more force of crew than is suitable for navigation, with no right to resist search or seizure, and to take the chances of capture as contraband merchandise, of blockade, and of a market in a belligerent port. In such case, the extent and character of the equipments is as immaterial as in the other class of cases. The intent 1 Section 763 and note 1, p. 383. Section 764, p. 384. is all. The act is open to great suspicions and abuse, and the line may often be scarcely traceable; yet the principle is clear enough. Is the intent one to prepare an article of contraband merchandise, to be sent to the market of a belligerent, subject to the chances of capture and of the market? Or, on the other hand, is it to fit out a vessel which shall leave our port to cruise, immediately or ultimately, against the commerce of a friendly nation? The latter we are bound to prevent; the former the belligerent must prevent. Professor Gola, of Parma, in a recent work, observes: Lo stesso dicasi ove si trattasse di costruzioni di navi: l'atto lede la neutralità, ove l'impresa si eseguisca dal governo, è invece un' opera d'industria ove si compia da privati imprenditori nei loro cantieri. Opinion of M. Or M. Ortolan, who had made no such distinction in the former edition of his work, "Sur la diplomatie de la mer," in the last edition of that work has, with reference to this subject, the fol- tola lowing, I cannot help thinking, somewhat extraordinary doctrine: Si l'on suppose un navire construit sur le territoire neutre, non pas sur commande d'un belligérant ou par suite d'un traité ostensible ou dissimulé avec ce belligérant, mais en vue d'un dessein quelconque, soit de navigation commerciale, soit tout autre, et que ce ravire, déjà par lui-même propre à la guerre ou de nature à être converti à cet usage, une fois sorti des ports de la nation neutre, soit vendu, dans le cours de sa navigation, occasionnellement, à l'un des belligérants, et se mette à naviguer en destination directe pour ce belligérant : un tel navire dans de telles circonstances tombe uniquement sous le coup des règles relatives à la contrebande de guerre. Il est sujet à être arrêté et confisqué par l'ennemi qui pourra s'en emparer, mais sans qu'aucun grief de violation des devoirs de la neutralité puisse sortir de ce fait contre l'état neutre pour n'avoir pas défendu à ses nationaux de telles ventes ou ne les avoir pas réprimées. C'est une opération de trafic qui a eu lieu, trafic de contrebande de guerre, dont aucune circonstance particulière n'est venue changer le caractère. Tel fut, en l'année 1800, le cas du navire américain le Brutus, capturé par les Auglais et jugé de bonne prise par la cour d'amirauté d'Halifax. Mais la situation change; la contrebande de guerre n'est plus la question principale; d'autres règles du droit des gens interviennent et modifient profondément la solution, si l'on suppose qu'il s'agisse de bâtiments de guerre construits, armés ou équipés sur un territoire neutre pour le compte d'un belligérant, par suite d'arrangement pris à l'avance avec lui, sous la forme d'un contrat commercial quelconque: vente, comniission, louage d'industrie ou de travail; que les arrangements aient été pris ostensiblement, ou qu'ils le soient d'une manière secrète ou déguisée; car la loyauté est une condition essentielle dans la solution des difficultés internationales, et sous le couvert des fausses apparences il faut toujours aller au fond des choses. Il y a ici, incontestablement, une seconde hypothèse qu'il importe de distinguer soigneusement de la précédente. Nous nous rattacherons, pour résoudre en droit des gens les difficultés que présente cette nouvelle situation, à un principe universellement établi, qui se formule en ce peu de mots: "Inviolabilité du territoire neutre." Cette inviolabilité est un droit pour l'état neutre, dont le territoire ne doit pas être atteint par les faits de guerre, mais elle impose aussi à ce même état neutre une étroite obligation, celle de ne pas permettre, celle d'empêcher activement, au besoin, l'emploi de ce territoire par l'une des parties ou au profit de l'une des parties belligérantes, dans un but hostile à l'autre partie. Les publicistes en crédit ne font aucun doute pour ce qui concerne l'armement et l'équipement dans un port neutre de bâtiments de guerre destinés à accroître les forces des belligérants. Ils s'accordent pour reconnaître l'illégalité de ces armements on équipements, comme une infraction de la part de l'état neutre qui les tolèrerait aux devoirs de la neutralité. N'est-il pas évident qu'il en doit être de même, a fortiori, de la construction de pareils bâtiments, lorsque cette construction a lieu dans les conditions prévues en notre seconde hypothèse? So that, according to M. Ortolan, if a ship happens to be ready made and armed, she may be lawfully sold to a foreign belligerent, though with a full knowledge on the part of the seller of the purpose to which she is to be applied; but, if she is made to order, the transaction assumes the opposite character, and is a breach of neutrality. With all 1 United States Documents, vol. vii, p. 36. |