The neutral merchant / in relation to the law of contraband of war and blockade under the order in Council of 11th March, 1915

IN RELATION TO THE LAW OF CONTRABAND OF WAR AND BLOCKADE UNDER THE ORDER IN COUNCIL OF 11TH MARCH 1915
SIR FRANCIS PIGGOTT
LATE CHIEF JUSTICE OF HONG KONG
Reprinted, by permission, from The Nineteenth Century and After
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PRESS, LTD.
AT ST. PAUL’S HOUSE, WARWICK SQUARE, E.C.
1915
These articles appeared this year in the April, August, and September numbers of The Nineteenth Century and After , and I have to thank the Editor for allowing me to reprint them so soon after publication. They are a justification of the much-attacked Order in Council of 11th March, 1915.
In reply to the German submarine menace the British Government resorted, by way of Reprisals, to a method of strangling the enemy’s commerce which, on the one hand, was wider in its scope than any list of contraband, and, on the other, was free from the ‘legal niceties’ which surround a declaration of blockade. Neutral merchants declared that it hit them hard, and the Government of the United States protested that it exceeded the limits which international law has placed to the right of a belligerent to interfere with neutral trade. The British Government replied justifying its action, and there, one would imagine, the matter should have rested for arbitration after the War. But the Government of the United States has continued its protests, has indeed just renewed them in most vigorous language, desiring to deflect us, in the interests of its commerce, from a course which must materially assist in crushing our enemy.
The United States Government, by placing England and Germany on the same plane of protest,—the ‘lawless conduct’ of the belligerents—has, as it seems to me, lost the true measure of national right and wrong on which humanity must rest its laws if civilisation is to continue. In redressing wrongs the law has never placed injuries to life and property on the same level. A neutral Government whose citizens have suffered in life by the action of one belligerent, in fortune, however grievously, by the action of the other, must yet be guided as to the manner of its protests by the relative degree of the offences.