T. E. HOLLAND
Oxford, December 5 (1904).
THE BRITISH PROCLAMATION OF NEUTRALITY
Sir,—I am glad that Mr. Gibson Bowles has called attention to certain respects in which the Proclamation of Neutrality issued by our Government on the 3rd of the present month differs from that issued on February 11, 1904.
In two letters addressed to you with reference to the Proclamation of that year, I ventured to point out what appeared to me to be its defects, alike from a scientific and from a practical point of view. The present Proclamation has slightly minimised these defects, but, as a whole, remains open to the objections which I then raised. I have no wish to repeat in detail the contents of my letters of 1904, especially as they may be now found in my Letters upon War and Neutrality, published in 1909, pp. 95 and 98, but am unwilling not to take this opportunity once more to urge the desirability of redrafting the document in question.
The Proclamation just issued still answers to my description of that of 1904, as consisting of seven parts—viz.: (1) A recital of neutrality; (2) a command to subjects to observe a strict neutrality, and to abstain from contravention of the laws of the realm or the Law of Nations in relation thereto; (3) a recital of the Foreign Enlistment Act, 1870; (4) a command that the statute be obeyed, upon pain of the penalties thereby imposed, and of "Our high displeasure"; (5) a warning to observe the duties of neutrality and to respect the exercise of belligerent rights; (6) a further warning that any persons presuming, in contempt of the Proclamation, to do acts in derogation of their duty as subjects of a neutral Power, or of the Law of Nations, will incur the penalties denounced by such law; (7) a notice that persons so misconducting themselves will obtain no protection from their Sovereign.
With the phraseology of No. 1, reciting British neutrality, and Nos. 2-5, dealing with the duties of British subjects under the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870, and constituting [142]the bulk of the Proclamation, little serious fault can be found. It is well that such persons should be warned of the penalties which they may incur, including the Royal displeasure.
The remaining two clauses relate, however, to matters of a totally different character from those previously mentioned, and care should therefore have been taken, but has not been taken, to make this perfectly clear. I would further remark upon these clauses: (1) That I agree with Mr. Bowles in regretting the omission here of the specific mention made in 1904 of "breach of blockade," "carriage of contraband," &c., as specimens of the acts undoubtedly contemplated in these two clauses; (2) that it is a mistake to describe acts of this kind as being in derogation of "the duty of subjects of a neutral Power," or "in violation of the Law of Nations," or as "liable to the penalties denounced by such law." Carriage of contraband, and acts of the same class, are notoriously not condemned by English law, neither are they, in any proper sense, breaches of the Law of Nations, which, speaking scientifically, never deals with individuals, as such, but only with the rights and duties of States inter se. What the Law of Nations really does is, as I said in 1904, "to define the measures to which a belligerent may resort for the suppression of such acts, without laying himself open to remonstrance from the neutral Government to which the traders implicated owe allegiance"; (3) that on the other hand, I am glad to find that, in accordance with my suggestion, while it continues very properly to be stated that persons doing the acts under discussion "will in no wise obtain any protection from Us against such capture, &c.," the further statement that such persons "will, on the contrary, incur Our high displeasure by such misconduct," has now been with equal propriety omitted.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND