UP AGAINST THEIR OWN JUDGMENT.

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 86, 9 October 1915, Page 12

UP AGAINST THEIR OWN JUDGMENT.

The law of contraband and of th« continuous passage relied upon by Great Britain depends largely upon the decision of thd United States Supreme Court in the case of the Springbok. (The New York Evening Globe summarises the contention in the following paragraph: "The Springbok was a vessel proceeding from a British port to the port of Nassau in the Bahamas. Her cargo was chiefly non-contraband. She was seized by one of our cruisers before her arrival at Nassau and brought before a prize court. This court condemned both vessel and cargo on the ground that the cargo was in fact destined for some Confederate port. On appeal the Supreme Court released the ship on the ground that conceivably her owners did not know the ultimate destination of the cargo. But the condemnation of the cargo was upheld. In the flattest way ihe Supreme Court asserted that if the ultimate destination of the cargo was a Confederate port it was seizable anywhere on the high seas. On the strength of this precedent the British foreign secretary argues that we may not complain if the British Admiralty similarly stops cargoes from going to or coming from Germany via neural countries."