within Prussian waters sent out its boats to make captures among vessels anchored in the neighbouring roads at the entrance of the Dollart.1 § 20. The principle that it is incumbent on the neutral sovereign to prohibit the levy of bodies of men within his dominions for the service of a belligerent, which was gradually becoming authoritative during the eighteenth century, is now fully recog nised as the foundation of a duty. And its application extends to isolated instances when the circumstances are such as to lead to serious harm being done to a friendly nation. The acceptance of letters of marque by neutral subjects from a belligerent is now prohibited by international common law, and is always forbidden by the neutral sovereign.2 But he is not expected to take precautions against the commission of microscopic injuries. The true limits of neutral care as regards individuals were indicated in the Proclamations of Neutrality issued by England in 1861 and 1870. At the outbreak of the American Civil War it was thought possible that large numbers of English subjects might engage in it, and an express prohibition of such service was therefore inserted in the Proclamation. In that issued at the beginning of the war between France and Germany the prohibition was omitted, it not being likely that any sufficient number to justify government action would be found in the ranks of either army. As a matter of fact a few English served as officers in both the German and French armies, without the neu 1 The Twee Gebroeders, iii. Rob. 164. 4 Report of Neutrality Laws Com- 3 Calvo, § 1055; Heffter, § 145. 2 E.g. see Proclamations of Limits of prohibit the duty to the levy of men within neutral territory. Use of neutral gerent as a base of operations. trality of Great Britain being in any way supposed to be compromised. § 21. Much the larger number of cases in which territory the conduct of a neutral forms the subject of comby a belli- plaint is when a belligerent uses the safety of neutral territory to prepare the means of ultimate hostility against his enemy, as by fitting out expeditions in it against a distant objective point, or by rendering it a general base of operations. In many such cases the limits of permissible action on the part of the belligerent, and of permissible indifference on the part of the neutral, have not yet been settled. Generally the neutral sovereignty is only violated constructively. The acts done by the offending belligerent do not involve force, and need not entail any interference with the supreme rights of the state in which they are performed. They may be, and often are, innocent as regards the neutral except in so far as they endanger the quiescence of his attitude towards the injured belligerent; and their true quality may be, and often is, perceptible only by their results. At the root of this class of cases lies the principle that a neutral state cannot allow its territory to become a scene of hostile operations to the disadvantage of one of two belligerents. The extension of this principle to acts of hostility taking their commencement in neutral ground and leading to immediate violence, which was made by Lord Stowell, is equally applicable to acts the completion of which is more remote in point of time or place, but which have been as fully prepared within the neutral territory. All such acts must be offences against the neutral on the part of the belligerent performing them; and if knowingly permitted by the neutral they are offences on his part against the belligerent for whose injury they are intended. Ordinarily their identification presents little difficulty. There could be no question as to the nature of the filibustering expeditions from the United States, of those which fed the Cretan insurrection, or of the Fenian incursions into Canada; and there can be as little question that the conduct of the Greek and American Governments presented examples of grave deviations from the spirit of the rule of neutrality and from the letter of that which guides nations in time of general peace. In cases of this kind the neutral country is brought under the common military definition of a base of operations; it becomes the territory from which an army' or a naval force draws its resources and reinforcements, that from which it sets forth on an offensive expedition, and in which it finds a refuge at need.'1 mode in may make base of operations. But there are some cases in which the question Special whether a neutral territory is so converted by a which belligerent into a base of operations as to affect the cruisers neutral state with responsibility, is not so readily neutral answered. An argument placed before the Tribunal of ports their Arbitration at Geneva on behalf of the United States, though empty in the particular case to which it was applied, suggests that the essential elements of the definition of a base possess a wider scope than is usually given to them. In 1865 the Shenandoah, a Confederate cruiser, was refitted at Melbourne, and obtained a supply of coal, which seems to have enabled her to commit depredations in the neighbourhood of Cape Horn on whalers belonging to the United States. It was urged on the part of the Government of that country that 'the main operation of the naval warfare' of the Shenandoah having been accomplished by means of the coaling' and other refitment,’ Melbourne had been converted into her base of 1 Jomini, Précis de l'Art de la Guerre, 1re partie, chap. iii. art. 18. operations. The argument was unsound because continuous use is above all things the crucial test of a base, both as a matter of fact, and as fixing a neutral with responsibility for acts in themselves innocent or ambiguous. A neutral has no right to infer evil intent from a single innocent act performed by a belligerent armed force; but if he finds that it is repeated several times, and that it has always prepared the way for warlike operations, he may fairly be expected to assume that a like consequence is intended in all cases to follow, and he ought therefore to prevent its being done within his territory. If a belligerent vessel, belonging to a nation having no colonies, carries on hostilities in the Pacific by provisioning in a neutral port, and by returning again and again to it, or to other similar ports, without ever revisiting her own, the neutral country practically becomes the seat of magazines of stores, which though not warlike are necessary to the prolongation of the hostilities waged by the vessel. She obtains as solid an advantage as. Russia in a war with France would derive from being allowed to march her troops across Germany. She is enabled to reach her enemy at a spot which would otherwise be unattainable. It is not for a moment to be denied that the actual law of nations places no restriction whatever upon the purchase of provisions by a belligerent in neutral ports; and that the limitations sometimes imposed of late years upon their supply, and upon that of coal, only indicates the direction in which usage is likely to grow. That it will remain in its During the American civil war ships of war were only permitted to be furnished with so much coal in English ports as might be sufficient to take them to the nearest port of their own country, and were not allowed to receive a second supply in the same or any other port, without special permission, until after the expiration of three months from the date of receiving such coal. present state is improbable. When vessels were at the mercy of the winds it was not possible to measure with accuracy the supplies which might be furnished to them, and as blockades were seldom continuously effective, and the nations which carried on distant naval operations were all provided with colonies, questions could hardly spring from the use of foreign possessions as a base of operations. Under the altered conditions of warfare, I cannot but think that the old rule is inconsistent with the principles of neutrality. stitutes an § 22. In the case of an expedition being organised What conin, and starting from neutral ground, a violation of expedition. neutrality may take place without the men of whom it is composed being armed at the moment of leaving. In 1828, a body of troops in the service of Dona Maria, who had been driven out of Portugal, took refuge in England. They remained for some time an organised body under military officers. In the beginning of 1829, they embarked in four vessels, nominally for Brazil, but in fact for Terceira, an island belonging to Portugal. In order to avoid the arrest of the expedition in England, the arms intended for it had been sent as merchandise from a port other than that from which the men started. The English Government considered that as the men were soldiers, although unarmed, they constituted a true expedition, and a small squadron was placed in the neighbourhood of Terceira to prevent a landing from being effected. The vessels were stopped within Portuguese waters, and were escorted back Earl Russell to the Lords Com- the interval. State Papers, |