THE ALLANTON (Continuous Voyage)
Sir,—I venture to think that the letter which you print this morning from my friend Dr. Baty, with reference to the steamship Allanton, calls for a word of warning; unless, indeed, it is to be taken as merely expressing the private opinion of the writer as to what would be a desirable rule of law.
It would be disastrous if shipowners and insurers were to assume, that a neutral vessel, if destined for a neutral port, is necessarily safe from capture. Words at any rate capable of this construction may, no doubt, be quoted from one of Lord Stowell's judgments, now more than a century old; but many things have happened, notably the invention of railways, since the days of that great Judge. The United States cases, decided in the sixties (as Dr. Baty thinks, "on a demonstrably false analogy"), in which certain ships were held to be engaged in the carriage of contraband, although their destination was a neutral port, were substantially approved of by Great Britain. Their principle wast adopted by Italy, in the Doelwijk, in 1896, and was supported by Great Britain in the correspondence upon this subject which took place with Germany in 1900. It was endorsed, after prolonged discussion, by the Institut de Droit International in 1896.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND
Oxford, July 11 (1904).
(Unqualified Captors)
Among the objections raised by the British Government to the capture by the Russian ship Peterburg in the Red Sea, on July 13, 1904, of the P. and O. ss. Malacca, for carriage of contraband were (1) that the so-called contraband consisted of government ammunition for the use of the British fleet in Chinese waters; and (2) what was more serious, that the capturing vessel, which belonged to the Russian volunteer fleet, after issuing from the Black Sea under the commercial flag had subsequently, and without touching at any Russian port, brought up guns from her hold, and had proceeded to exercise belligerent rights under the Russian naval flag. In consequence of the protest of the British Government, and to close the incident, the Malacca was released at Algiers, after a purely formal examination, on July 27, and Russia agreed to instruct the officers of her volunteer fleet not to make any similar captures.
The question of the legitimacy of the transformation on the high seas into a ship-of-war of a vessel which has previously been sailing under the commercial flag was much discussed at The Hague Conference of 1907, but without result. Opinions were so much divided upon the point, that no mention of it is made in Convention No. vii. of that year, ratified by Great Britain on November 27, 1909, "as to the transformation of merchant vessels into ships-of-war." At the session of the Institut de Droit International held at Oxford in 1913, this question was discussed, and rules relating to it will be found in Section 2 of the Manuel des lois de la guerre maritime, the drafting of which occupied the whole of the session.