EIGHT TO PROTECT INTERESTS AND INDUSTRY. 163 



When the adherence to a public treaty would enslave a whole peo- 

 ple, would block up seas, rivers or harbors, depopulate cities, condemn 

 fertile regions to eternal desolation, cut off a country from its sources 

 of provision or deprive it of those commercial advantages to which its 

 climate, productions, or commercial situation naturally entitle it, the 

 magnitude of the particular evil induces us to call in question the ob- 

 ligation of the general rule. Moral philosophy furnishes no precise so- 

 lution to these doubts. * * * She confesses that the obligation of 

 every law depends upon its ultimate utility; that this utility having a 

 finite and determinate value, situations may be feigned and conse- 

 quently may possibly arise, in which the general tendency is outweighed 

 by the enormity of the particular mischief. 



In all these cases of restrictions upon private rights on the high 

 seas, familiar and well settled, the principle upon which they rest is 

 the same, the subordination of individual interest to that of a nation, 

 when necessity requires it. Upon no other ground could they be 

 defended. Grotius, speaking of neutral trade in articles not usually 

 contraband of war, but used indiscriminately in war and peace, such 

 as money, provisions, etc., says (book III, ch. 1, sec. o): 



For, if I can not defend myself without seizing articles of this 

 nature which are being sent to my enemy, necessity gives me the right 

 to seize them, as we have already explained elsewhere, under the 

 obligation of restoring them unless there be some other reason super- 

 vening to prevent me. 



Mr. Wheaton, commenting upon this opinion of Grotius, points out 

 that it is placed by that author entirely upon the ground of the right 

 of self-defense, under the necessities of a particular case; that Grotius 

 does not claim that the transportation of such property is illegal in 

 itself, or exposes the vessel carrying it to capture; but that necessity 

 nevertheless justifies in the case in which it actually arises, the seizure 

 of the vessel as a measure of self-defense. And he shows by further 

 reference that it was the opinion of Grotius that a necessity of that 

 sort exempts a case from all general rules. (Law of Nations, p. 128.) 



Mr. Manning (p. 203) thus defines the rights of belligerents as against 

 neutral commerce: 



"It consists merely in preventing vessels from interfering with the 

 rights of belligerents, and seeking their own emolument at the direct 

 expense of one party in the contest." 



And Azuni (part 2, chap, n, art. 2, sec. 14, p. 91) remarks: 



"The truth of this theory (right of neutral trade) does not, however, 

 deprive belligerents of the right of stopping the commerce of neutrals 

 with the enemy, when they deem it necessary for their own defense." 



