19 12.] MOORE— CONTRABAND OF WAR. 41 



to demonstrate the existence of a general conviction that the present 

 state of things is altogether unsatisfactory. 



Recalling the treaties between Prussia and the United States of 

 1785 and 1799 for the virtual abolition of contraband, it is curious 

 to find the United States and Germany acting together as two of the 

 five powers that voted against its abolition in 1907; but, although the 

 United States voted against the British proposal, it is gratifying to 

 note that Admiral Sperry, on behalf of the United States delegation, 

 after the British proposal had failed to secure the unanimous ap- 

 proval of the conference, maintained the historic American position 

 that the right of capture should be confined to articles agreed to be 

 absolutely contraband. In this relation it may be observed that the 

 Institute of International Law, in 1896, after much deliberation, 

 voted that the category of conditional contraband should be abolished, 

 the belligerent, however, to have the right, at his pleasure and subject 

 to an equitable indemnity, to sequester or to preempt, when on their 

 way to an enemy port, articles serving equally for war and for peace."" 

 Rather than allow existing conditions to continue, it might be advisa- 

 ble to add to the present duties of neutrals the obligation to prohibit 

 the exportation of a<rms and munitions of war to belligerents, it being 

 agreed that commerce in all other articles should be free. Under 

 the more efficient administrative methods now in vogue, the enforce- 

 ment of a measure of this kind probably would not prove to be so 

 difficult as it was once supposed to be. Several examples of such 

 a prohibition have already been given. ^"^ By a joint resolution of 

 the Congress of the United States of April 22, 1898, passed at the 

 opening of the war with Spain, the President was " authorized, in 

 his discretion and with such limitations and exceptions as shall seem 

 to him expedient, to prohibit the export of coal or other material 

 used in war from any seaport of the United States until otherwise 

 ordered " by himself or by Congress. Not only was this law en- 

 Abstaining: Japan, Panama, Rumania, Turkey. — 4. 



See Deuxieme Conference de la Paix, Actes et Documents, I., 259; III., 

 881, 890. 



^ Annuairc de I'Institiit de Droit International, Vol. 15 (1896), 231. See 

 Westlake's comments, Int. Law, II., 249. 

 ^° Supra, pp. 22-23. 



