Scandinavia. Scandinavian league, A. Spectator, 113:879. Dec. . Scandinavia and the war. H. A. Larsen. Outlook, 108:771. Dec. War and a greater Scandinavia, The. Julius Moritzen. N. Amer. R., 201:372. March. Servia. Bedeutung der serbischen Frage im Ursachenkompler der Kriegsausbruches. Bartholomans von Lanzi. Deutsche R., 39:321. Dec. Switzerland. Neutralità svizzera. La Vita Int., 18:48. Jan. Svizzera e la sua neutralità, La. Roberto Nichels. Nuova Antol., 175: 94. Treaties. Advance made by treaties of arbitration. James L. Tryon. Yale Law J., 24:56. Nov. Displacement of state laws by treaties. Columbia Law R., 14:667. Dec. Permanent neutrality treaties, The. Gordon E. Sherman. Yale Law J., 24:217. Jan. Schiedsgerichtsverträge Frankreichs mit der Turkei, Venezuela und Haiti. Karl Strupp. Z. f. Völkerrecht, 8:366. Treitschke, Heinrich. Teachings and influence of Treitschke, The. R. of R. (N. Y.), 51:107. Jan. Triple Alliance. Logia della triplice alleanza, La. G. A. di Cesaro. 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Ind., 81:387. March. THE DOCTRINE OF CONTINUOUS VOYAGES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY I It would not be possible to understand, much less to state clearly, the origin, nature, and extent of the so-called Doctrine of Continuous Voyages without explaining, even in a succinct manner, the causes that contributed to the statement of this famous principle. There is hardly anything in the field of social conceptions that is not in some way or other connected with the past. For this reason when we want to ascertain the principles that obtained in a period gone by it is imperatively necessary that our inquiries should start from an age even more remote, so that the light of history may clear the paths that we intend to explore. During the middle of the eighteenth century nothing was heard of the doctrine which we attempt now to expound; it was only at the end of that century that its first manifestations appeared. But the examination of the navigation laws of the times and of the principles of international law that regulated the intercourse between neutrals and belligerents would at once suggest that the prohibition which the doctrine embraced is dependent on or complementary to the so-called "Rule of war of 1756." Long before the eighteenth century the colonizing Powers of Europe had restricted the trade of their colonies to vessels of their own country. They did not allow supplies to be carried to them in foreign ships,1 and they prohibited in the same manner the exportation of colonial produce except by means of national vessels. The European Powers upheld strenuously this system of "the closed door," for they thought that on its adherence depended entirely, or mainly at least, the value of their colonial possessions. In fact freedom of navigation during the eighteenth century did not exist. At the outbreak of the war between England and 1 England had provided for the monopolization of her colonial trade by the Navigation Act of 1651. France in 1756, the latter Power, finding herself disabled, on account of her relative weakness upon the sea, from carrying on her colonial trade, decided to relax her monopoly in favor of the Dutch, who were then neutral. Dutch merchantmen were permitted, under certain restrictions, to carry on the trade between France and her dependencies, but other neutral traders continued to be excluded. The English prize courts thereupon condemned all Dutch vessels engaged in this traffic, together with their cargoes, on the ground that such vessels had incorporated themselves in the merchant service of the enemy by carrying the trade which, prior to the war, was monopolized by French ships. In fact "they were considered as made French by adoption." This limitation of the neutral commerce has generally come to be known as "The Rule of War of 1756," because the cases that demanded its application occurred then for the first time. The reasons on which the rule is founded were brilliantly given by Sir William Scott when it was his duty to deliver his judgment in The Immanuel. He expressed himself as follows: * The general rule is, that the neutral has a right to carry on, in time of war, his accustomed trade to the utmost extent to which that accustomed trade is capable. Very different is the case of a trade which the neutral has never possessed, which he holds by no title of use and habit in times of peace, and which, in fact, can obtain in war by no other title, than by the success of the one belligerent against the other, and at the expense of that very belligerent under whose success he sets up his title; and such I take to be the colonial trade, generally speaking It cannot be contended to be a right of neutrals, to intrude into a commerce which had been uniformly shut against them, and which is now forced open merely by the pressure of war; for when the enemy, under an entire inability to supply his colonies and to export their products, affects to open them to neutrals, it is not his will but his necessity that changes his system; that change is the direct and unavoidable consequence of the compulsion of war.2 The principle embodied in this rule was considered to be a part of the law of nations, and as such it was enforced by the English prize courts during the latter part of the eighteenth century. This statement would seem to be somewhat vague, but it must be borne in mind that it is hardly possible to venture a more definite assertion in this connec22 C. Rob. 186. tion without entering into a detailed examination of the usages then prevailing with regard to the rules of war on sea. It is of course quite likely, as has been observed by an able authority,3 that after an inquiry into the maritime customs of a given age, the international rules founded in them may, in general, be considered to be unsatisfactory, for the laws of war on sea embodied the conduct of an earlier period and such conduct might not be in harmony with the actual times, and also because they may find their source in the ex parte ordinances of a given. government. It is needless to say that the application of the rule was bound to produce some kind of hardships on neutral traders who would lose an opportunity for the opening offered during war time. The interests of neutrals and belligerents are necessarily divergent in such cases, and hence it was natural that the conduct of England should give rise to a considerable number of disputes. Nothing, however, was settled by any convention respecting the lawfulness of neutral commerce with the colonies of a belligerent state. The rule laid down in 1756 received new impetus at the outbreak of the war of 1793, for England then issued stringent regulations in connection with the carriage of the colonial trade of her enemy. A loud protest was immediately heard from those neutral states whose merchants had been engaged in the colonial traffic. Possibly owing to this, the English government issued milder instructions in January, 1794. They were to the effect that "such vessels as were laden with goods the produce of the French West India Islands, and coming directly from any part of the said islands to Europe" were to be seized. Nothing was said in the royal order respecting the voyage of a neutral vessel from Europe to the French colonies. or of the traffic between the West Indian islands and the United States. These instructions, therefore, constituted a relaxation of the rule of war, but it is clear that the effect of this municipal regulation could not be held to preclude this country from asserting, to its full extent, the principle contained in the rule in some subsequent period. For it is to be kept in mind that the prohibition of carrying on the trade of the colony by a neutral state was considered to be a principle of the law of nations, and hence this could not possibly be affected by the municipal regulaSir John Macdonell. |