1912] MOORE— CONTRABAND OF WAR. 39 



known that this merchant suppUes articles and material of this kind 

 to the enemy," or " is destined to a fortified place of the enemy, or 

 to another place serving as a base for the armed forces of the 

 enemy." These grounds of inference are so vague and general that 

 they would seem to justify in almost any case the presumption that 

 the cargo, if bound to an enemy port, was " destined for the use 

 of the armed forces or of a government department of the enemy 

 state." Any merchant established in the enemy country, who deals 

 in the things described, will sell them to the government; and if it 

 becomes public that he does so, it will be " well known " that he 

 supplies them. Again, practically every important port is a " forti- 

 fied place " ; and yet the existence of fortifications would usually 

 bear no relation whatever to the eventual use of provisions and 

 various other articles mentioned. Nor can it be denied that, in this 

 age of railways, almost any place may serve as a " base " for sup- 

 plying the armed forces of the enemy. And of what interest or 

 advantage is it to a belligerent to prevent the enemy from obtaining 

 supplies from a " base," from a " fortified place," or from a mer- 

 chant " well known " to deal with him, in his own country, if he is 

 permitted freely to obtain them from other places and persons, and 

 especially, as countries having land boundaries can for the most part 

 easily do, through a neutral port? No doubt the advantage of such 

 prevention may readily become greater, if the enemy be, like Great 

 Britain or Japan, an insular country. 



The attempt to establish an international prize court constitutes 

 one of the most remarkable advances ever proposed towards the 

 founding of an international jurisdiction, and the efifort made in 

 the Declaration of London to furnish a universal law is a step in 

 the right direction. The able framers of the Declaration may be 

 assumed to have made the best compromise that was at the time 

 obtainable. But the question of contraband remains unsolved; and 

 it will so remain either until, by an inconceivable relapse into primi- 

 tive sixteenth-century conditions, all commerce with belligerents is 

 forbidden, or until innocent articles of universal use, such as pro- 

 visions, which, even when consumed by military men, are consumed 

 by them as human beings rather than as soldiers, are, in conformity 



