pleasure and until the moment most disadvantageous to its enemy, there would be a breach of what the United States describes in its Proclamation of Neutrality as 'the duty of a neutral government not to permit or suffer the making of its waters subservient to the purposes of war.' The rule is to name a maximum duration for the visit. This rule is new; there was a trend in its direction before, but it was not fixed until the Hague Conference of 1907. The normal length of innocent stay was then fixed at twenty-four hours; but a neutral may adopt any other period it chooses-France takes thrice twenty-four hours. What if the vessel outstays this period? The Hague Convention simply says that the neutral may take such measures as it considers necessary to render it incapable of putting to sea so long as the war lasts; the officers and crew are to be 'detained' with it; internment is not mentioned.

*

When Germany signed the Convention (XIII of 1907) containing the rule just mentioned, she made a reservation with regard to the Article in which it is found. But there have been many instances in the present war in which it has been enforced against her. Directly the war broke out, officials searched the German liners then lying in ports of the United States with a view to applying the rule to such of them as had an offensive armament. And the United States has since interned German cruisers under this rule, not only in ports on its mainland, but also, for instance, in Honolulu and at Guam in the Ladrone Archipelago. Norway is reported to have taken the same course; and in February last a German auxiliary cruiser was interned by Argentina. The United States, it may be added, deems it its duty to use due diligence to prevent the escape of vessels so interned. On one occasion when some of them were

This is really the complement of another much older 'twenty-four hours' rule. The older rule said that, when war-ships of two enemy powers were together in the same neutral port, one of them must not sail within twenty-four hours of the departure of the other. In 1861 a Federal war-ship abused this rule. It arrived in Southampton Water when a Confederate cruiser was in dock there, and, by always being ready to start before its enemy, was able practically to blockade it in British waters. Jan. 1862, accordingly, Great Britain issued the rule about a maximum stay of twenty-four hours, since adopted by many other powers, notably by the United States and Japan.

In

reported to be meditating a dash for the sea, Federal officials searched them in order to test the truth of the rumour (Times,' March 8). The commanders of warships stationed in New York and Boston received orders to use force if necessary to prevent such a departure (Morning Post,' March 16); and a German vessel which actually made the attempt at San Juan in Puerto Rico was driven back by shell-fire from the American guardship (Times,' March 23). Further, a belligerent warvessel, which after repairing in a United States port quits as an alternative to detention, will not be allowed to hug the American coast, but must put out into the open sea; this was laid down, according to a Central News message printed in the newspapers for March 31, in the case of the German cruiser 'Prinz Eitel Friedrich.'

Asylum to individual naval combatants.-The circumstances in which combatants may take refuge with a neutral from perils by sea are various. It may be from their own boats or by the enemy that they are landed on neutral soil, or they may have been picked up by a neutral vessel, either a man-of-war or privately owned; they may be the survivors of a naval engagement or the victims of mines, tempest or accident. It would seem as if one and the same rule should govern all these cases, namely, that the enemy might in no case demand their surrender-unless, indeed, the neutral vessel had intruded into an unfinished engagement in order to rescue them— and that in all cases the neutral should take the steps necessary to prevent them from serving again during the war. In fact, however, no such simple and uniform rule is recognised.

·

A dispute about this matter arose between Great Britain and the United States in 1864 in connexion with the sinking of the Alabama' by the Kearsage' off Cherbourg. An Englishman who witnessed the fight from his yacht picked up some survivors from the Alabama,' including its captain, Semmes. He then sailed straight for Southampton, where the rescued men were landed and allowed to go free. It seems that the 'Alabama' had struck its colours before sinking, so that Semmes and his crew were virtually prisoners of war; but the rescuer was unaware of this and declared that he had been bidden by the captain of the 'Kearsage' to do what

he could to save the men. The United States Government, however, complained that he ought to have handed over all the saved to the victor. The British Government was unable to agree. The matter went no further. This topic was discussed at the first Peace Conference, but opinions were so divergent that no rule was adopted. More success was attained in 1907. By Convention X (The Geneva Convention and maritime warfare') an agreement was made concerning wounded, sick, or shipwrecked combatants, which may be roughly summarised as follows: (I) A belligerent war-ship may demand their surrender* from hospital-ships and private vessels of all nationalities (Art. 12). (II) They must abstain or be prevented from rendering further service during the war in the following cases, (i) when received on board a neutral war-ship (Art. 13), (ii) when landed by their enemy at one of their own ports (Art. 14), and (iii) when landed [by a belligerent] at a neutral port (Art. 15).

We can now see how it came about in this war that sailors sheltering in neutral countries were at one time interned and at another let go free. After the German armed liner Cap Trafalgar' was sunk by the British armed liner Carmania' on Sept. 14 last, her crew were landed in Argentina by one of her colliers; they were interned under Art. 15. Some of the men of our own navy, however, who were landed in Holland after their ship was torpedoed on Sept. 22 were released unconditionally. This is because they were rescued and brought on to neutral soil by fishing vessels. It will be seen that Art. 13 provides for the internment of those only who have been rescued by war-ships. It might, indeed, be thought that, as Art. 15 does not itself contain the words inserted above-by a belligerent-the men should have been interned because they were landed at a neutral port.' But it appears from a Report of the Committee which drafted the Convention that the Art. was meant to apply only to men landed by a belligerent; and such an ancillary

* Great Britain made a reservation that she understands this to apply only to combatants rescued during or after a naval engagement in which they have taken part; not, e.g., to men rescued after shipwreck caused by storm or a casual mine.

document has an authority in continental jurisprudence which is not known in the interpretation of a British statute. The men were, therefore, released because, though landed at a neutral port, they were not landed by a belligerent. If the technical reason of their release were explained to them, they would doubtless marvel as well as rejoice-especially as, under Art. 12, an enemy cruiser could have required their surrender to him by the rescuing fishing-vessels. The same rules have been applied to combatant aviators who have been rescued from the sea. In one case, Commander Hewlett who fell into the sea and was picked up by a neutral fishingboat was allowed to return to England; in another, Flight-Lieutenant Murray, having in a similar predicament been picked up by a neutral war-vessel, was interned.

Supplies from neutral ports for belligerent war-vessels.— A neutral may grant other facilities than asylum to a belligerent war-vessel which enters its ports. Whatever the visitor needs in order to continue its active life as a vessel, as distinguished from a war-vessel-fuel, victuals, men, repairs-may be supplied in the neutral port without any breach of neutrality. Limits must, however, be observed; for it is obviously inconsistent with neutrality that such assistance should be rendered in the port as would make it a base of operations for the ship. The difficulty is to draw the line. This topic was discussed at the second Hague Peace Conference, and certain articles were agreed on which turn into general law rules previously enforced by this or that individual state. These articles are in Convention XIII of 1907 ('Neutral rights and duties in maritime war'). By them a belligerent war-ship in a neutral port is allowed to carry out such repairs as are absolutely necessary to render it seaworthy, but not such as in any way to put it in better fighting trim; to revictual so as to bring its supplies up to the peace standard; and, as regards fuel, to take in sufficient to enable it to reach the nearest port in its own country or even to fill its bunkers if this be the limit fixed by the neutral. What the Convention forbids is that the ship should replenish or increase its supplies of war material or its armament in neutral waters, or complete its crew, or, if it has once shipped

fuel in a neutral port, replenish its supply in a port of the same Power within the three succeeding months.

It will be noticed that no distinction is drawn above between repairs necessitated by injuries sustained in battle and other repairs. A proposal was indeed made to forbid the former, but it was abandoned on the ground that it might sometimes be impossible to assign the exact cause of the need for repairs. Instead it was expressly left to the neutral to indicate in each case what repairs might be carried out. Nothing in the Convention prevents the neutral from declining to allow the repair of injuries sustained in battle. The proper course would seem to be to disallow such repairs. This was the course adopted in the Russo-Japanese war, two years before the date of the Convention, by the United States; three Russian war-ships put into Manila in May 1905, after having been badly damaged in action; leave to repair them there was asked, but it was refused on the ground that no extension of the twenty-four hours' rule could be granted in such circumstances. The precedent is a valuable one. No similar question seems to have arisen as yet in the present war. After the battle off the Falkland Islands the German cruiser Dresden' is reported to have made for Punta Arenas, a Chilean settlement on the eastern part of the Straits of Magellan, and to have coaled there, but no mention is made of any repairing.* In the case of the small German cruiser Geier,' the need of repair was, it may be presumed, not due to battle; the successive telegrams appearing in the 'Times' concerning this vessel furnish, all the same, an interesting illustration of neutral diligence on the matter before us. They are as follows:

'October 19, 1914.-Honolulu, Oct. 17.-The German cruiser "Geier" will remain here indefinitely, repairing her engines, which will require several weeks. . . . American naval experts will determine what repairs are necessary.

...

...

'November 1.-Tokio, Oct. 31.-The "Nichi Nichi Shimbun" to-day publishes a message from Honolulu which says that although the repairs to the German cruiser "Geier" are finished, the vessel is now seeking an excuse to remain in port for the purpose of keeping a Japanese war-ship occupied

See official French announcement in the Times' of Dec. 26, 1914.