CONTRABAND OF WAR.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVI, Issue 7, 17 June 1898, Page 6

CONTRABAND OF WAR.

The course of the present war has given, a live interest to the question as to what is and what is not contraband of war. The early portion of. the war was devoted chiefly to the capture by each side of vessels carrying- the enemy's flag-. The cabels have from time to time announced the release of some of the captured Spanish ships, the courts not having in such cases upheld the legality of the captures in accordance with the code of international law. The term " contraband of war " is applied to certain commodities relative to war, and to trading in them with the belligerant states. A neutral state may carry on ordinary trade with a country at war (excepting with an effectively blockaded port) but the trading vessel must carry no contraband goods. The meaning of the term is liable to misunderstanding, but the following is the best brief and popular account of the subject that we have met. It may be of interest to readers of the N.Z. Tablet, more especially at the present juncture, when the tangle of complications in East and West may at any time result in its being put iuto operation around our coasts :—: — Contraband of war. — In determining, according to the law of nations, whether merchandise is or is not contraband of war, it is classified as :—: — 1. Absolute contraband. 2. Occasional or conditional contraband. 3. Goods not contraband. The first class inrludis all goods of an essentially warlike character. The second class includes provisions, naval htores, coal, horses certain kinds of machinery, certain forms of steel, Iron, etc., which are subservient to warlike use, and which are destined for the use of the enemy. They are contraband or not according to occasions and conditions as to their character, shipment and destined use. Every such case depends on its own tacts. The third class, includes articles not suited to warlike use, such as church service and musical instruments, household wares and goods, and other such like articles, together m ith many that are purely mercantile in character. No article of merchandise is contraband unless transported beyond the territorial waters and jurisdiction of a neutral State, nor unless destined for an enemy's port, or for an enemy's use, or for an enemy's ship upon the high seas, which belligerent ships are permitted to police in search of an enemy s ships and contraband of war. No final and exhaustive definition of contraband articles can be given. They are changing with the progress of inventions. Some articles were formerly contraband which now are not. The converse is ulmj true. Each belligerent government is competent to determine what it will treat as c mtraband. It it-, proscription should be made in outrageous disregard of international law or treaty rights, neutral States alfected would probably interpose. Neither belligerent can treat goods as contraband in violation of its treaty stipulations with a neutr d power as regards the subjecta of that power. Any one desiring to ship goods to a foreign port in neutial vevels woul I profitably consult any existing treaties Between Spain and the government of that port. The belligerent rights of capture as against a neutral exist only either in case of contraband of war or of enemy's goods aboard, or of a violation of an effective blucade, and in other analogous cases where the conduct of the neutral justifies the belligerent in treating his property as enemy's property. If Spain adheres to the piinciplc, " free ships, free goods," as the United States Government proposed to do at the beginning of the war, only contraband goods are subject to capture in such ships.