20 MOORE— CONTRABAND OF WAR. [Februarys, 



the circumstance that the right or duty to punish it is committed to 

 one agency or another, but upon tiie fact that it is or is not punish- 

 able. Tlie proof that it is unlawful is found in the fact that its com- 

 mission is penalized. All acts for the commission of which inter- 

 national law prescribes a penalty are in the sense of that law unlaw- 

 ful. That there are various acts of this kind, such as the supplying 

 of contraband of war to a belligerent, which neutrals are not obliged 

 to prohibit and punish by their municipal law, merely signifies 

 that the interests of neutrals have not been regarded as negligible, 

 and that there are limits to the burdens which they have been 

 required to assume and to the exertions which they are required to 

 make. Should a neutral government itself supply contraband of 

 war to a belligerent it would clearly depart from its position of neu- 

 tralitv. The private citizen undertakes the business at his own risk, 

 and against this risk his government can not assure him protection 

 without making itself a party to his unneutral act. 



These propositions are abundantly established by authority. 



Maritime states, says Hefifter, have adopted, 



in a common and reciprocal interest, the rule that belligerents have the right 

 to restrict the freedom of neutral commerce so far as concerns contraband of 

 war, and to punish violations of the law in that regard. . . . This right has 

 never been seriously denied to belligerents.* 



Says Kent : 



The principal restriction which the law of nations imposes on the trade 

 of neutrals is the prohibition to furnish the belligerent parties with warlike 

 stores and other articles which are directly au.xiliary to warlike purposes.* 



Says Woolsey : 



If the neutral [government J should send powder or balls, cannon or 

 rifles, this would be a direct encouragement of the war, and so a departure 

 from the neutral position. . . . Now, the same wrong is committed when a 

 private trader, without the privity of his government, furnishes the means 

 of war to either of the warring parties. It may be made a question whether 

 such conduct on the part of the private citizen ought not to be prevented 

 by his government, even as enlistments for foreign armies on neutral soil 

 are. made penal. But it is diflicult for a government to watch narrowly the 

 operations of trade, and it is annoying for the innocent trader. Moreover, 



* Hefftcr, " Droit Int.," Bergson's ed., by GefFcken, 1883, p. 384. 

 'Kent, "Int. Law," 2d ed., by Abdy, 330. 



