to seize 80 to 90 per cent of the coal and iron resources of France and the greater part of her apparatus for the production of arms. She holds also the entire resources of Belgium, both of raw material and finished product. The foul blow by which she possessed herself of these indispensable treasures had two consequences which she did not look for-the active hostility of England and the moral indignation of all other nations. In helping France to make good the loss which she sustained through such perfidy the American people think that they are doing God's service, and their only regret is that they cannot do more of it. If they had foreseen the present conditions they would have enlarged their gun factories and powder mills to meet the emergency more promptly.

A German writer in the New York Times of May 30, Mr. Vom Bruck, says: "If the German nation is wiped out with the help of American arms and ammunition no man of the white race in the United States would be able to think of such a catastrophe without horror and remorse." All of the contending nations say that they are fighting for existence, which means that if they do not win in the end they will be wiped out. With such an alternative staring us in the face very few tears would be shed by Americans, of any color, if both the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs, with all their belongings, should be wiped off the face of the earth.

WAR CONTRABAND

"THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS"

During the last few months our ears have been much belabored with a high-sounding phrase. The world dearly loves a phrase, and the less of meaning it has the more it will be petted and coddled. "High air castles are cunningly built of words, the words well bedded also in good logic mortar," rails Carlyle in cynical mood, but philosophical withal, his cynicism gleaming with the flame of truth. "The freedom of the seas" is the latest shibboleth. Serious men and serious publications have fallen to its charm, and there are today many well meaning persons, doing their thinking at second-hand, who are victims to the mischief of this fallacious phrase.

Let us begin by clearly understanding what is meant. In time of peace, when nations respect international law and the code of morality, the seas are free to all the world. The sea is the one great democracy, for there all nations are equal and the ocean bestows impartially its favors. England, the greatest naval power in the world, possesses no rights that are not enjoyed by Holland, whose naval power is negligible; or shared by Switzerland, whose flag no ocean has seen. England's naval strength gives her no advantages over other nations; she is subject to the same laws and rules and regulations; her might does not absolve her from responsibilities or relieve her from obligations. "The freedom of the seas" is, therefore, an expression without meaning and without value when conscience governs, when sanity rules, when morality is dominant, and nation calls to nation in the voice of friendship. But what is the case in time of war?

This phrase would not have been much heard if German calculations had worked out successfully. We must state the facts plainly in order to ascertain the truth. When Germany plunged Europe into war a year ago she relied with as much

1 By A. Maurice Low. Reprinted from the North American Review, September 1915, p. 395-403.

confidence on her navy as on her army; she was as certain that her navy was strong enough to enable her to keep the sea as she felt secure in the invincibility of her army. Events quickly made her realize that she had as greatly overrated her own naval strength as she had underestimated that of her opponent. A few months after the declaration of war the German mercantile flag vanished from the seven seas; the great German merchant marine, on which the life of the empire depends, had either fallen prize to the enemy, or was bottled up in neutral ports, or tied up to the deserted docks of home ports: a mocking memory of what once had been Germany's pride. Her ships of war, after having given a gallant account of themselves, were battered and sent beneath the waves or driven to seek asylum by internment; her fighting fleet, refusing to fight, is powerless. In contrast to the collapse of German sea power, her enemy carried out the most marvellous troop movement the world records. Hundreds of thousands of men, with their horses, guns and supplies, were sent from the four quarters of the globe to France. Hundreds of thousands of tons of merchandise-raw material for manufacturing purposes, food stuffs, military equipment of all kinds-had entered and cleared from the ports of Great Britain and France. And while this was going on, possibly only because the German navy virtually was non-existent and the British navy held command of the seas, the coast of Germany was laid under blockade, the high sea fleet of Germany was "contained" by the British navy, and was a menace only as a "fleet in being" must always be a military danger to be reckoned with and guarded against. To sum up: Germany, a year after the declaration of hostilities, despite the millions she has spent upon her navy, has seen her commerce destroyed, her ports closed, her supplies dwindling, her military strength weakened, her financial position daily growing more precarious, because she cannot sell, and what she buys she must pay for in gold at a ruinous price.

Under these circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that Germany, in her extremity, should appeal to the sympathy of the United States, and clamor for "the freedom of the seas."

War is brutal business, and one of the brutalities of war is that the innocent often suffer almost as much as the guilty; the neutral nation, neither responsible for the war nor having anything to gain by it, has its commerce dislocated, its people

forced to take great risks and meet heavy losses. To prevent Germany from obtaining cotton, for instance, works a very serious loss to the American cotton grower, but it is one of the consequences of the war provoked by Germany. Cotton is absolutely essential to Germany for the prosecution of the war, for without cotton Germany is unable to manufacture guncotton, and without guncotton, torpedoes are useless and high explosives cannot be made. Great Britain and her allies, therefore, must prevent Germany from securing cotton.

Under a system that has slowly expanded, the world has agreed that when nations are at war certain articles used exclusively for military purposes shall be declared contraband; they may be traded in at the risk of the trader, but are properly subject to capture. In the old days the contraband list was very simple-powder, cannon, firearms, and a few other similar articles. Modern warfare has called every resource of science to its aid, with the result that there is scarcely an article of commerce that cannot be used for military purposes; hence the contraband list has been greatly extended, and now covers the principal articles of commerce as well as many entering into the arts and sciences. Take cotton as a typical illustration. Before the discovery of high explosives, its value was commercial and not military, but since the invention of the modern gun, with its great range and penetrative power, cotton, to nations at war, has become one of the most important elements in the manufacture of munitions, and its commercial use is subordinate. It is the same with scores of other articles that lose their innocent character the moment war is declared.

Out of the intercourse of nations has grown up international law, which is not law in the sense of municipal law, but is a rather loose arrangement by which nations agree to do or not to do certain things that are partly for their own interest, partly for the general convenience and benefit of mankind. International law is founded largely on precedent, on arrangements that have been found to work with fair satisfaction, partly on treaties and agreements that have become incorporated into the unwritten law of nations.

It is this vague and ill-defined corpus juris that allows belligerents certain rights and protects the rights of neutrals. Thus, it is lawful for a belligerent to blockade an enemy's port, but the blockade must be effective physically, not merely a paper

decree. Having effectually sealed the ports, or being in command of the approaches to the coast, a neutral vessel attempting to enter a blockaded port may be lawfully captured, and, with its cargo, condemned as prize.

But while the right of seizure is granted to the belligerent so as to enable him to inflict as much damage as possible upon his opponent, and a neutral government must not, as a government, supply either belligerent or give any help to the one not given to the other, the observance of strict neutrality places no restrictions upon the trading of the citizens of a neutral nation with belligerents. A neutral may trade with a belligerent, but he does so at his peril. If there is sufficient profit to risk sending cotton or anything else to a country under blockade, there will always be adventurous spirits to make the attempt. Neither equity nor morals requires the neutral government to prevent this commerce. To do so would be to make the so-called neutral not a neutral, but an ally of one belligerent and an opponent of the other. The obligation to prevent the cargo reaching its destination is imposed not upon the neutral, but upon the belligerent, who must be strong enough to make his blockade effective or suffer the consequences.

International law makes a foolish and illogical distinction between absolute and conditional contraband. Under the former is comprised all articles that are solely for military use-arms, projectiles, explosives, ingredients for their manufacture, and other things of a similar character, the government at war having notified the world by proclamation of what it holds to be absolute contraband.

Conditional contraband may be used for military purposes, but need not necessarily be so used, and its legality of seizure hinges on use and ownership. Take foodstuffs as an illustration; it is because Great Britain is strong enough to prevent the importation of foodstuffs into Germany that the German government would like to have international law changed.

Foodstuffs imported by a government or purchased by the military authorities are absolute contraband, on the theory that they are to be applied to military use. Foodstuffs purchased by private individuals are conditional contraband, on the theory, an entirely false one as I shall presently show, that they are for the use not of the military but of the civilian population; and while humanity does not revolt at the thought of an