Sir,—Let me assure your correspondent upon Marine Insurance that I have been familiar, ever since its promulgation, with the Japanese prize law of 1894, quoted by him as authority for statements made in your issue of March 10, the misleading character of which I felt bound to point out in a letter of the same date. All the topics mentioned by him on that occasion, and to-day, are, however, regulated, not by that law, but by notifications and instructions issued from time to time during 1904.
I make it my business not only to be authoritatively informed on such matters, but also to see that my information is up to date.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND
Oxford, March 15 (1905).
(Continuous Voyages)
The opinion expressed in the letter which immediately follows, that the American decisions, applying to carriage of contraband the doctrine of "continuous voyages," seem to be "demanded by the conditions of modern commerce, and might well be followed by a British prize Court," was referred to by Lord Salisbury in a despatch of January 10, 1900, to be communicated to Count von Bülow, with reference to the seizure of Bundesrath. Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 1 (1900), p. 19.
The distinction, drawn in the same letter, between "carriage of contraband" and "enemy service," which has sometimes been lost sight of, was established in the case of Yangtsze Insurance Association v. Indemnity Mutual Marine Company, [1908] K.B. 910, in which it was held by Bigham, J., that the transport of military officers of a belligerent State, as passengers in a neutral ship, is not a breach or a warranty against contraband of war in a policy of marine insurance.[158] The carriage of enemy despatches will no longer be generally treated as "enemy service" since The Hague Convention, No. xi. of 1907, ratified by most of the Powers, including Great Britain, on November 27, 1909, by Art. 1 provides that, except in the case of breach of blockade, "the postal correspondence of neutrals or belligerents, whether of an official or a private character, found on board a neutral or enemy ship on the High Seas is inviolable."
The case of the Allanton, which gave occasion for the letter of July 11, 1904, was as follows. This British ship left Cardiff on February 24 of that year, with a cargo of coal to be delivered either at Hong-Kong or Sasebo. On arrival at Hong-Kong, she found orders to deliver at Sasebo, and, having made delivery accordingly, was chartered by a Japanese company at another Japanese port, to carry coal to a British firm at Singapore. On her way thither, she was captured by a Russian squadron and taken in to Vladivostok, where on June 24 she was condemned by the prize Court for carriage of contraband. The Court held, ignoring the rule that a vessel ceases to be in dilecto when she has "deposited" her contraband (since affirmed by Art. 38 of the Declaration of London of 1909), that she was liable in respect of her voyage to Sasebo; as also in respect of the voyage on which she was captured, on the ground that her real destination was at that time the Japanese fleet, or some Japanese port. This decision was reversed, as to both ship and cargo, by the Court of Appeal at St. Petersburg, on October 22 of the same year.