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i : renee. : February, 1919 that time and events have consider- ably modified our traditional sea policy. In fact our national action has on several times failed to square with our theories, and there is grow- ing up in the country a conviction that perhaps some of the old prin- ciples need restatement to make them square with modern conditions. This is in line with English thought which takes. .the position that the whole question of the freedom of the seas is by no means as simple or. easily understood as it once was. In answer to our arguments for the immunity of private property at sea, the British point out the changed now covers whole seas, enables you to capture and condemn it just as surely as though the ship concerned were held up at the very entrance to the belligerent’s harbor, as used to be done in the old days?” ys the war against Germany, the position of such neutrals as Hol- land, Denmark and Sweden has been specially trying, and as the great champion of neutral rights at sea, we should be interested in the British point of view on this exceedingly complex portion of the freedom of the seas doctrine. Some neutrals, almost everyone will agree, did not pursue THE MARINE REVIEW 61 interesting decision handed down by the judicial committee of the privy council, Lord Sumner presiding, in London on: Dec. 16. The case was that of the Norwegian steamship STIGSTAD, owned by the Klaveness Dampskibsaktieselskab, a Norwegian corporation, and managed by A. F. Klaveness & Co., also a Norwegian concern. While on a voyage from Kirkenes, Sydvaranger, Norway, to Rotterdam, begun April 10, 1915, with iron ore briquettes, the property of neutrals, she was stopped by H. M.S. Inconstant and ordered to Lieth and thence to Middlesbrough, England, to discharge. “GREAT BRITAIN WILL NEVER RELINQUISH HER NAVAL POWER’’—WINSTON CHURCHILL conditions of modern warfare, which make battle lines continuous by land and sea, and greatly magnify the importance of neutrals with borders adjacent to those of a_ belligerent state. Your typical Englishman also asks: “What is the sense of insisting that private property at sea should be immune from. capture, if the excep- tion of ccntraband makes so big a hole in this immunity as to make it worthless? In a war like the present, which is the business of whole peoples, everything that a nation exports or imports may be essential to its power to continue the war, and therefore legitimate contraband. Again, what is the sense of protecting private property outside territorial waters, if the institution of the blockade, which courses during the war calculated to engender the utmost sympathy from the allied side. The position was too frequently taken that a neutral has the right to pursue its commerce with an enemy absolutely unmolested, as though no war were going on, grow- ing rich in the process. There are plenty of instances on record of con- traband imported into a neutral border state, ostensibly for use in that state, being shipped post-haste and at high prices to Germany. Nevertheless British sea policy has aimed to give these neutrals all the consideration consistent with a state of war, in- cluding awards of liberal compensa- tion. The British point of view toward the small border neutral is very clearly expressed in an exceedingly It was admitted that the cargo was for transfer into Rhine barges for shipment into Germany. The cost of the briquettes and freight was agreed to and paid for. But in addition, the steamship managers claimed special damages for detention and diversion from destination. The claimants’ real contention, according to Lord Sum- ner, was that the British order in council authorizing the seizure was contrary to international law and invalid. In its decision, the court spoke as follows, and here lies the heart of the matter: “Their lordships cannot be blind to what is notorious to all the world, - namely the outrage committed by the enemy upon law, humanity, and the rights alike of belligerents and neu- EN ee