Neutral ship

“ The responsibility of discriminating between neutral and enemy vessels and between neutral and enemy cargoes obviously rests with the attacking ship, whose duty it is to verify the status and character of the vessel and cargo, and to preserve all papers before sinking or capturing the ship. ”

“ A neutral merchant ship, travelling under enemy’s convoy, places itself, with the assistance of the belligerent force, beyond the application of the belligerent right of visit and search, and thus commits a breach of neutrality. ”

“ Besides the neutral ships, many enemy ships by disguising them- selves with neutral distinguishing marks could get through with their cargoes in safety if the U-boat was not able to set its doubts on the subject at rest. ”

“ Over the abstract right of belligerents so to deal with the ships or property of neutral Powers the publicists for long fought a battle-royal, contending either that a neutral ship should be regarded as neutral territory, or that an enemy’s property was lawful prize anywhere. Whilst the French or Continental theory regarded the nationality of the vessel rather than of its cargo, so that the goods of a neutral might be fairly seized on an enemy’s vessel, but those of an enemy were safe even in a neutral ship ”

“ I deny that a belligerent nation has been conceded ‘the right of visit and search, and the right of capture and condemnation’ of neutral ships engaged in unneutral service or carrying contraband for the enemy. ”

“ In the third place, international law prescribed that a peaceful merchant ship, whether belonging to an enemy or to a neutral country, should not be destroyed or sunk without provision for the safety of crew and passengers. ”

“ Conflicting nations, accordingly, have always claimed, and, when they can, will never cease to enforce, this right of searching neutral ships, in order to discover whether or not there be enemy’s property on board. ”

“ The difference between selling armed vessels to belligerents, on the one hand, and building them to order, on the other hand, is usually defined in the following way:—
An armed ship, being contraband of war, is in no wise different from other kinds of contraband, provided she is not manned in a neutral port so that she can commit hostilities at once after having reached the Open Sea. ”

“ So, too, except goods contraband of war, or conveyed with intent to violate a blockade, neutrals may transport to belligerents whatever belligerents may agree to take. And so, again, neutrals may convey in neutral ships, from one neutral port to another, any goods, whether contraband of war or not, if intended for actual delivery at the port of destination, and to become part of the common stock of the country or of the port. ”

“ The empress forwarded an explicit declaration of the design and the nature of the combination to the several European courts. By this extraordinary treaty, all neutral ships were to be freely navigated from port to port on the coasts of nations at war, and the effects belonging to the subject of any sovereign were to be safe in all neutral vessels, except contraband merchandise. Thus the seas were to be left in the situation designed by God and nature, that all mankind might reap the benefits of a free and open intercourse with each other. ”

“ In passing, we may observe that these port duties imposed on neutral vessels show with particular clearness the measurelessly arbitrary methods of dealing with foreign trade, adopted by Great Britain. She even went farther still: the same ships, on returning to their home across the seas, were obliged to call at an English port and to submit 96to being searched. As a matter of fact, the poor neutral countries have not been treated any better during the present war. But this is by the way. The main consideration for England was, not to impede neutral shipping, but to destroy it. ”

“ From the very beginning of the war the Germans had prosecuted a desultory submarine warfare on the shipping of Great Britain and had extended it gradually until neutral shipping also was largely involved. ”

“ Action taken with the U.S. authorities for the introduction of a system by which the trade from that country in neutral shipping was controlled enabled the ships of the 10th Cruiser Squadron to be gradually withdrawn from blockade duties and utilized as ocean convoy cruisers. ”

“ Neutral shipping is also in danger in the war area, as owing to the secret order issued by the British Admiralty January 31st, 1915, regarding the misuse of neutral flags, and the chances of naval warfare, it can happen that attacks directed against enemy ships may damage neutral vessels. ”

“ The distinction between the purchase of vessels of war from the belligerent, in time of war, by neutrals, in a neutral port, and of merchant vessels, is founded on reason and justice. It prevents the abuse of the neutral by partiality towards either belligerent, when the vessels of the one are under pressure from the vessels of the others, and removes the temptation to collusive or even actual sales, under the cover of which they may find their way back again into the service of the enemy. ”

“ The French ships of war and privateers may stop and bring into the ports of the republic, such neutral vessels as are loaded, in whole or in part either with provisions belonging to neutrals and destined for enemy ports, or with merchandise belonging to enemies. ”

“ So accustomed are we in these days to peace and plenty that we have need to remind ourselves constantly that there were no trade routes kept open, no policing of the seas, no international treaties nor diplomatic relations to prevent a peaceful merchant ship from disappearing altogether on the high seas, or staggering into port with the loss of her cargo and most of her crew. ”

“ If a Fleet is a legitimate weapon of offence and defence for nations whose borders are on the sea, then the fortune of one aspect of war between them must rest with the superior Fleet, and when war does come the imagined equality of the sea, whether for belligerents or for neutrals who cross the track of it, vanishes. ”

“ The swift commerce destroyer as an arm of the naval service has taken the place of the private armed ship which roamed the seas for its own profit as well for its country’s cause. To-day the United States has a navy prepared both to defend its own merchant vessels, what few there are, and to menace the trade of a hostile nation on the high seas. ”

“ It also happens in war that neutral vessels carry to neutral ports such articles as are contraband if bound for a hostile destination, the vessel being cognisant or not of the fact that arrangements have been made for the articles to be afterwards brought by land or sea into the hands of the enemy. ”

“ Property even of the enemy is exempt from seizure on neutral vessels, unless it be contraband of war. If goods contraband of war are found on any neutral vessel, and the commander thereof shall offer to deliver them up, the offer shall be accepted and the vessel left at liberty to pursue its voyage, unless the quantity of contraband goods be greater than can be conveniently received on board your vessel, in which case the neutral vessel may be carried into port for the delivery of the contraband goods. ”

“ A neutral must prevent a belligerent man-of-war, whose crew is reduced from any cause whatever, from enrolling sailors in his neutral ports, with the exception of such few hands as are necessary for the purpose of safely navigating the vessel to the nearest port of her home State. ”

“ There is not to be found in the maritime code of any nation, or in any commentary thereon, the least glimmering of authority that distinguishes, in cases of resistance, the fate of the cargo, from that of the ship. If such a distinction could have been sustained, it is almost incredible that not a single ray of light should have beamed upon it during the long lapse of ages, in which maritime warfare has engaged the world. ”

“ A privateer cruised in pursuit of the enemy’s commerce and went to sea for no other purpose, while a letter-of-marque vessel carried a cargo to a destined port or ports, taking prizes if they came in her way and defending herself against the enemy as a regularly commissioned private ship of war under heavy bonds to her government to obey the rules of warfare. ”

“ So vast is British sea-power of every kind, compared with the sea-power of any other people, that foreign fleets and joint expeditions generally have to get British shipping to help them through their troubles when the British are either neutral or allied. The Russian fleet could not have gone to the Far East in 1904-05 without the supply ships of the British. ”

“ The main object aimed at by our Fleet, whether for the defence of commerce or for any other purpose, is to prevent any ship of the enemy from getting to sea far enough to do any mischief before she is brought to action. Any disposition that is even moderately successful in attaining this object will almost certainly be effective in preventing a large fleet of transports, than which nothing is more vulnerable or more difficult to hide, from reaching our shores. ”

“ A neutral must, so far as is in his power, prevent belligerent men-of-war from cruising within his portion of the maritime belt for the purpose of capturing enemy vessels as soon as they leave this belt. ”

“ The want of such labor and of seamen seriously affects the operations of the Department.
The skill, courage, and activity of our cruisers at sea cannot be too highly commended. They have inflicted heavy losses on the enemy without suffering a single disaster, and have seriously damaged the shipping interests of the United States by compelling their foreign commerce to seek the protection of neutral flags.
Your attention is invited to the suggestions of the report on the subject of supplying seamen for the service, and of the provisions of the law in relation to the Volunteer Navy. ”

“ It is said that the neutral vessel is part of the territory of the neutral nation, and therefore the belligerent has no right to violate it, any more than to land on the neutral territory and there seize the enemy's goods. ”

“ The merchant ships of either of the parties, coming from the port of an enemy, or from their own, or a neutral port, may navigate freely towards any port of an enemy of the other ally: they shall be, nevertheless, held, whenever it shall be required, to exhibit, as well upon the high seas as in the ports, their sea-letters and other documents described in the twenty-fifth article, stating expressly that their effects are not of the number of those which are prohibited as contraband ”

“ The most remarkable part of the instructions issued to the first ship-money fleet referred to the hostilities between the ships of other nations, not merely in the King’s Chambers, but 261 throughout the narrow seas. “In this your Lordship’s employment,” wrote the Lords of the Admiralty, “you are not to permit or suffer any men-of-war to fight with each other, or men-of-war with merchant, or merchant with merchant, in the presence of his Majesty’s ships in any part of the Narrow Seas. ”

“ The great question of the right of search in neutral vessels was settled by the achievements of a few smart vessels with great and daring captains, belonging to a young and hitherto feeble power in America,—a right which had been vainly contested by all the powers of Europe. ”

“ Add to this the fact that other men as gunners were required in great numbers—for practically every British merchant ship became defensively armed—and one can see how important to our island nation and the overseas Empire is the existence of peace-time shipping, with all that it connotes—steamships, liners, tramps, colliers, trawlers, drifters, yachts, fishing smacks, it does not matter. From all these, and from the few full-rigged ships and sailing coasters, we had to draw our supplies of personnel, and it still takes longer to train a man into a sailor than into a military unit. ”

“ Not an English ship this time—a Yankee, by her beautiful flag.
It is the old scene—the hurried assembling of the people; the signals and answering signals; the manning of the surf boat; the meeting of the elders for consultation as to ways and means of reception. But this meeting is for serious work. The new ship is a trader; and only a ship of war imports no danger to these defenceless folk. There may be a rough crew, not too well in hand, fierce men, beyond punishment for excess, immediate or remote. ”

“ It is, indeed, to us, a home picture—the only one we trust to have for many years to come—of the wide-spread evils of war in these modern days. But it is a picture quite unique in its nature; for the nation to which these seventeen fine ships belong has a Navy perhaps second only to that of Great Britain, and the enemy with which she has to cope, is but a schism from herself, possessed of no port that is not blockaded, and owning not more than five or six vessels on the high seas; and yet there is no apathy and nothing to blame on the part of the United States Navy. ”

“ X. Any merchantman, to whatever nation she may belong, charged exclusively with removal of sick and wounded, is protected by neutrality, but the mere fact, noted on the ship’s books, of the vessel having been visited by an enemy’s cruiser, renders the sick and wounded incapable of serving during the continuance of the war. ”

“ It is practice that makes perfect. The original plan for mobilising the Navy for war was that on the outbreak of war you disorganised the ships already fully manned and efficient by taking a portion of the trained crew, thus impairing the efficiency of that ship, and putting them into the un-manned ships and filling up both the old and the new—the former efficient ships and those in the dockyards—with men from the Reserve. ”

“ Imagine a lone ship—and a half-burned, far from seaworthy galleon at that—going pirating in the Pacific where every town, every man, every ship was an enemy; where there was not a friendly harbor in which to lie; where Spanish warships were numerous; where there was no buccaneers’ lair in which to refit or provision and secure men, and where the buccaneers were completely cut off, separated by thousands of miles, from their own countrymen. ”