JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 89 



elude conventions, specifying the line of road to be followed and 

 regulating their transit so as to make it as little onerous as possible 

 to the population among which they are. A similar immunity is 

 extended to ships of war and public ships of state. Merchant vessels 

 lying in the ports of a foreign state enjoy a qualified immunity. 



An interesting branch of sovereignty in relation to the subjects 

 of a state is afforded by questions of naturalization. In Germany, 

 Austria, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland, nationality follows par- 

 entage alone, and all these states claim the children of their subjects 

 wherever they may be born. Other countries, while regarding the 

 children of an alien, as an alien, give him the right, on attaining his 

 majority, of electing to be a citizen of the country in which he 

 resides. Except in the United States, the nationality of a wife is 

 merged in that of her husband, so that when a woman marries a 

 foreigner she loses her own nationality and acquires his, and a sub- 

 sequent change of nationality on his part carries with it a like change 

 on her side. By the exceptional practice of the United States a 

 native woman marrying a foreigner remains a subject of her own 

 state, though an alien woman marrying an American citizen becomes 

 herself naturalized. 



We may now consider maritime belligerency. The elements 

 are simple. When two states go to war the ships, public and private 

 of each, are so many chattels, and the capture of them is regulated 

 by the same principles as the seizure on land of moveables by 

 soldiers. 



Prize courts are established to decide whether a ship is taken 

 into possession of the enemy, as possesion is the key-stone of the 

 right to confiscate. This leads us to the consideration of neutrals 

 and their goods. 



The plenipotentiaries at Paris fixed certain principles, of which 

 we heard much in the recent war with Spain. They are as follows : 



1. Privateering is abolished. 



2. A neutral flag covers enemy's goods, except those contra- 

 band of war. 



3. Neutral goods, except contraband of war, are not liable to 

 capture under the enemy's flags, and 



4. Blockades, to be binding, must be effective. 



