Contraband of war

“ There is a tacit compact that the hostile act of the individual shall not be ascribed to his government; and that in turn, the government will not protect the individual from being treated as an enemy. But if the government adopts the act of the individual, and supports it by force, the government itself may be rightfully treated as hostile. Thus contraband of war, though belonging to a neutral, is condemned as the property of an enemy, and his government takes no offence at it ”

“ That part of the trade of the neutral which consists (with the limitation as to blockades and contraband of war) in selling his own produce to the enemy and buying the enemy's produce in return for his own, is not interfered with by the old maritime rule which we are at present considering.
What the rule does forbid is that a neutral should undertake the carrying of the enemy's property, in order to enable him to carry on a trade which otherwise would be stopped. ”

“ Art. 27 obliges the contracting Powers to "communicate to each other in due course all laws, proclamations, and other enactments, regulating in their [130] respective countries the Status of belligerent warships in their ports laid waters."
II. A neutral State is not bound to prevent such assistance being rendered by its subjects to either belligerent as is involved in, e.g. blockade-running or carriage of contraband; but merely to acquiesce in the loss and inconvenience which may in consequence be inflicted by the belligerents upon persons so acting. ”

“ But in such a crisis as confronts the world to-day, the chief stress of international perplexities arises from the threatened interests of commerce,—the detention by a belligerent of goods claimed as contraband, whether destined to an opposing belligerent or to neutral territory whence transshipment to belligerent territory is considered more than probable; or, again, the question of permitting by a neutral the domestic manufacture and sale or export to belligerents of war munitions. ”

“ Every nation is fighting in self-defence, every nation is fighting to destroy the tyranny of armaments, every nation is fighting to show that unprovoked aggression cannot be practised with impunity. Every nation pays homage to peace by maintaining that its enemies began the war. ”

“ I, for my part, am convinced that the error, which has been handed down to us from antiquity, according to which all law is suspended during war, and everything is allowable against the enemy nation—that this abominable error can but increase the unavoidable sufferings and evils of war without necessity, and without utility from the point of view of that energetic way of making war which I also think is the right way. ”

“ A nation tempted to be brutal as Germany was, must be given to understand that the first display of barbarism in warfare would bring all other civilized countries on its back. In short, nothing but a solemn international agreement unitedly to oppose and to punish the ruthless making of war can assuredly prevent it. ”

“ Though the suspicion of hostile intentions, on the part of another power, may not justify the commencement of actual war, yet it calls for measures of armed prevention, and will authorise indirect hostility. ”

“ To watchers of the present conflict it seems an intolerable thought that, after the fighting is done, we should once more return to a condition of “armed peace,” with jealous, distrustful, and revengeful Powers piling up armaments and plotting singly or in groups against their neighbors until Europe is plunged into another war more terrible, more bloody, and more costly than this. ”

“ The continual state of warfare in which Europe is kept, too clearly shows how ill-governed it is. Were each nation naturally and nobly governed, war would cease, and the people would learn to understand and to respect one another's rights without a passionate or suicidal recourse to arms. ”

“ But neutrals cannot expect that Germany, forced to fight for her existence, shall, for the sake of neutral interest, restrict the use of an effective weapon if her enemy is permitted to continue to apply at will methods of warfare violating the rules of international law. ”

“ The Isaiahs of true prophecy have long warned the people of this country that there is big trouble brewing for us in the East and in the Far East, and that we need armaments and men trained to arms to safeguard us against that trouble. These Isaiahs have told us that we cannot safeguard ourselves by any sacrifices made upon the altar of international brotherhood, or forefend ourselves against the great red peril of war by a few mumblings written down in arbitration treaties; but that we must have guns and men behind the guns. ”

“ With consistent inconsistency, they place the blame for war on the advocates of adequate armaments—the true peace-advocates and peace-makers and enemies of war, who are forefending us against war. The advocacy of armaments is construed by them as the advocacy of [267] war; measures for peace are confounded with measures for breaching the peace.
A curious phase of the matter is that many friends of armaments themselves make a similar mistake, and think that in defending armaments they are called upon to defend war also. As a matter of fact, war has no defense, except as a last resort. ”

“ The rule which declares that war makes all the citizens or subjects of one belligerent enemies of the Government and of all the citizens or subjects of the other, applies equally to civil and to international wars. ”

“ While nations continue to contend for power, while they refuse to substitute law for force, there will continue to be wars. And while they devote the best of their brains and the chief of their resources to armaments and military and naval organization, each war will become more terrible, more destructive, and more ruthless than the last. ”

“ This power to repel invasion, and, upon just cause, to invade and destroy the natives, authorizes offensive as well as defensive war, but only "on just cause." The very terms imply the existence of a country to be invaded, and of an enemy who has given just cause of war. ”

“ Nothing grander has ever appeared to the eyes of men than to fight against barbarism and despotism, against the system of provocations and threats which Germany called peace, against the system of murder and wholesale pillage which Germany calls war, [Loud cheers.] And it is against the insolent supremacy of a military caste that France and her Allies have flung themselves as emancipators and avengers. ”

“ And is it to that ministry, is it to those agents of the executive power, that you would entrust the conduct of the war? Is it thus you would abandon the safety of the country to those who wish to destroy you?
"The thing which you have most cause to fear, is war. War is the greatest scourge which can, in our present circumstances, menace liberty! For it is in no wise a war kindled by the enmity of peoples. It is a war concerted by the enemies of our Revolution. ”

“ But as between nations, who can redress themselves only by war, such transfer is in itself an aggression. He who renders me insecure; he who hazards my peace, and exposes me to imminent danger, commits an act of hostility against me, and gives me the rights consequent on that act. ”

“ It is a reflection upon civilization that two nations, each so brave, heroic, and self-sacrificing, should, without their consent and by the miserable and iniquitous folly of scheming statesmen and diplomats, be plunged into a war, of which no man can see the end and which has already swept away the flower of their manhood. ”

“ There is a point beyond which forbearance ceases to be a virtue, and I expressed the hope that the war would be waged with shot and shell, fire and sword, naval expeditions and blockades, and every possible means, upon the men who had conspired to subvert the government. ”

“ Hence it all depends upon who attacks; the interpretation of 'attack,' however, is debatable both in politics and international law. Again and again it has been asserted that that Power which declares war is not the attacker, but the one which makes a continuance of peaceful relations impossible. ”

“ In the ordinary course of affairs the invasion of the territory of one Empire by the troops of another is, and can be nothing else than, an act of war, necessitating hostilities as a measure of defence on the part of the Power invaded. ”

“ The policy of gigantic armaments cannot in the very nature of things ensure any final settlement of disputes between States. It leads, and can only lead, to an intolerable [101] situation from which war comes to be regarded by diplomacy as the only escape. ”

“ It is the military point of view to think that too much peace makes a nation soft, and you become angry at the feeling that has whispered that war is futile and forthwith you place war where the idealists forget that it belongs, not beside barbarism, but with civilization. ”

“ All the [Pg 184] regulations that are issued nowadays only mention rights. You must do away with the idea that peace will come by itself. Those who say “down with the War” are traitors, and those who say “there should be no advance” are cowards. ”

“ Another extraordinary moral consequence flows from this insufficiency of defence: “If the enemy fails to defend his country, we may rightfully appropriate what we want.” Here, now, is a nice question of martial law or casuistry, solved with the simplicity of an ancient Roman. In other words, when in the enemy’s country, the army shall be strictly careful not to seize, capture or appropriate to military or private uses, any property—that it cannot get.
“They (the Southern people) have lost all title to property, and can lose nothing not already forfeited.” ”

“ For in the first place it comprises, in the number of enemies, not only those who actually bear arms, or who are immediately subjects of the belligerent power, but even all who are within the hostile territories, as appears from the form given by Livy, who says, that "war is declared against the sovereign, and all within his jurisdiction." ”

“ A neutral is forbidden by the law and practice of nations, to permit a belligerent to arm and equip vessels of war within her forts. Nor may the citizens of a nation fit out any vessel, or enlist, to go beyond the limits of their own country to assist any people in war against another with whom they are at peace. ”

“ Surely all must unite in condemning the Arbitrament of War. The simplest may read and comprehend its enormity. Can we yet hesitate? But if War be thus odious, if it be the Duel of Nations, if it be the old surviving Trial by Battle, then must its unquestionable barbarism affect all its incidents, all its machinery, all its enginery, together with all who sanction it, and all who have any part or lot in it,—in fine, the whole vast System. ”

“ But be this as it may, one thing we must all admit, that horrible as war is, and dreadful as are its miseries, no nation is fit to be a nation that will not defend itself by arms, if war is forced upon it. And no nation is safe, or worthy of a place among nations, if it is not prepared to maintain its existence against invasion from without or rebellion from within. ”

“ And if in fact, or under any colour, we should endeavour to seize the said kingdom by force of arms, by making, or moving war, offensive or defensive, from this time for ever, that is to be held, judged, and declared, for an unlawful, unjust, and wrongfully undertaken war, and for violence, invasion, and usurpation, done against reason and conscience ”

“ And thus I prove to your majesty that to change our plan now, without warning our allies, would be at once unskillful and dishonest. We should make war with the aggression on our side; we should make it, deserving to have it made against us; and we should have the appearance of fearing it whilst provoking it, for a permission granted to five hundred men, to two hundred men, to fifty men, to ten men, is still a permission. ”

“ But now, instead of wars that last through thirty years, that are determined by the personal collision of individuals, that desolate nations, the great civilized nations of the world hesitate at war because of its possibilities of evil, and diplomacy sits where once force alone was intrenched. ”

“ All those who don't know what they are talking about. If every nation had the right to let loose a war for the sole purpose of enlarging her boundaries we'd have to take off our hats to the Germans who provoked the present curse for their own purposes. ”

“ It has long been a widely accepted theory that the only sanction for the right conduct of nations, for those rules of conduct which nations seek to enforce upon each other, is the exercise of force; that behind their diplomatic argument rests, as the ultimate argument, the possibility of war. ”

“ Nevertheless, a historian will probably regard the establishment and continuance of this blockade of the enemy lands after their surrender as one of those many acts of almost incredible inhumanity which have made the recent Great War conspicuous in the annals of mankind and shaken thoughtful men's faith in the reality of modern civilization. ”

“ That every war is an evil,—that in every war one party must be in the wrong, and very often both: all this is universally admitted, but all this does not answer the practical question, whether, on the ground that war is an evil, a state should submit, and proclaim itself ready to submit, to any extent of encroachment and aggression from foreign nations without resistance. ”

“ This same irreconcilable opposition which appears in moral principles, shows itself again in the political foundation of the assizes. Originating in the clash of arms, grown up in the contests and necessities of war, on a soil where nothing but constant war could save it from annihilation, the system is purely martial—made for conflict and strife. ”

“ Even as to weak nations, we are further advised that the powerful and vigorous nation—which alone apparently has the right to live—must not wait for some act of aggression or legitimate casus belli, but that it is justified in deliberately provoking a war, and that the happiest results have always followed such “deliberately provoked wars,” for “the prospects of success are the greatest when the moment for declaring war can be selected to suit the political and military situation.” ”