prevented by the guns of the place from carrying them off, burnt them in the river.1 opinion in eenth § 10. In the course of the eighteenth century, Growth of opinion ripened greatly as to the due relations of the eightbelligerents and neutral states. It was not strong century. enough to form an adequate or consistent usage; but it adopted a few general principles with sufficient decision to afford the basis of a wholesome rule of conduct. This progress was in part owing to text writers, who formulated the best side of international practice into doctrines, which from their definite shape, and their alliance with natural law, seemed to be clothed with more authority than was perhaps their due, and which soon came to be acknowledged as standards of right. shoek. Bynkershoek was the earliest writer of real im- Bynkerportance, and few of his successors have equalled' him in sense or insight. In his 'Quæstiones Juris Publici,' written in 1737, he says, 'I call those nonenemies who are of neither party in a war, and who owe nothing by treaty to one side or to the other. If they are under any such obligation they are not mere friends, but allies Their duty is to use all If I am neutral, care not to meddle in the war I cannot advantage one party, lest I injure the other . . . The enemies of our friends may be looked at in two lights, either as our friends, or as the enemies of our friends. If they are regarded as our friends, we are right in helping them with our counsel, our resources, our arms, and everything Wolff. Vattel. which is of avail in war. But in so far as they are the enemies of our friends, we are barred from such conduct, because by it we should give a preference to one party over the other, inconsistent with that equality in friendship, which is above all things to be studied. It is more essential to remain in amity with both than to favour the hostilities of one at the cost of a tacit renunciation of the friendship of the other.'1 Wolff, who wrote in 1749, calls those neutrals, 'who adhere to the side of neither belligerent, and consequently do not mix themselves up in the war.' They are in a state of amity with both parties, and owe to each whatever is due in time of general peace. Belligerents have therefore the right of unimpeded access to neutral territory, and of buying there at a fair price such things as they may want. This right, it is true, is qualified by the requirement that it shall be exercised for a causa justa, but war is a causa justa, and therefore the passage of troops is to be permitted. Vattel, who published his work in 1758, says that neutrality consists in an impartial attitude so far as the war is concerned, and so far only; and it 1 Non hostes appello qui liceret ope, consilio eosque juvare, milite auxiliari, armis et ciare. c. ix. conservare, quam bello favere, et sic amicitiæ tacite renunQuæst. Jur. Pub. lib. ii. 2 Jus Gentium, § 672. requires:-1st, that the neutral people shall abstain from furnishing help when they are under no prior obligation to grant it, and from making free gifts of troops, arms, munitions, or anything else of direct use in war. I say that they must abstain from giving help, and not that they must give it equally, for it would be absurd that a state should succour two enemies at the same moment. Besides, it would be impossible to do so equally; the very same things, the same number of troops, the same quantity of arms, of munitions, &c., furnished under different circumstances, are not equivalent succour. 2nd, that in all matters not bearing upon the war a neutral and impartial nation shall not refuse to one of the parties, because of the existing quarrel, that which it accords to the other.'1 Vattel afterwards so far qualifies this sound general statement as to lay down that a country without derogating from its neutrality, may make a loan of money at interest to one of two belligerents, refusing a like loan to the other, provided the transaction between the states is of a purely business character. The qualification is only of importance as tending to show in how narrow a sense Vattel would have been inclined to construe his own words. égalité; les mêmes choses, le même nombre de troupes, la même quantité d'armes, de munitions, etc., fournies en des circontances différentes ne forment plus de secours équivalents. 2. Dans tout ce qui ne regarde pas à la guerre, une nation neutre et impartiale ne refusera point à l'un des parties, à raison de sa querelle présente, ce qu'elle accorde à l'autre. Droit des Gens, lib. iii. c. vii. § 104. 2 Lib. iii. c. vii. § 110. V Practice of the century as furnished under neutral state to a belligerent. It is to be observed that these authors, in dealing with conduct failing to satisfy the obligations of neutrals, speak only of acts done by the state itself with the express object of assisting a belligerent. They say nothing indicating how far in their view a nation was bound to watch over the acts of its subjects; and in practice this doctrine as to state conduct was controlled by the action of treaties. powers, § 11. It was clearly open to a state, without abaneighteenth doning its position of neutrality, to supply a body of to troops troops to a belligerent under a treaty between the two either for mutual help, or for succour to be treaty by a given by one only to the other in the event of a war which might be in contemplation by an intending belligerent at the very moment of concluding the treaty. Agreements of this kind were often made, and were sometimes guarded against by express stipulation. In 1727, when England was already in a state of informal war with Spain, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel agreed to provide her with 12,000 troops 'whenever they should be wanted.'1 One of the most marked instances of the practice is furnished by the conduct of the United Provinces during the war of the Austrian Succession. Under their guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction they sent in 1743 an auxiliary corps of 20,000 men to the assistance of Maria Theresa, and they gradually so engaged with their whole force in the active operations of the war that the brilliant campaign of Marshal Saxe in 1746 left them destitute of an army. Nevertheless, when in the next year the French forces entered Holland, a Royal Declaration announced that the invasion was solely intended to put a stop to the effects of the protection given to the English and Austrian armies 1 Dumont, viii. ii. 141. ' by the Republic, 'sans rompre avec elle.'1 Piedmont engaged in like manner in the same war; and England in it, as in the Seven Years' War and that of American Independence, drew large bodies of troops from neutral German states under treaty with their sovereign.2 Bynkershoek says 'what if I have promised help to an ally, and he goes to war with my friend? I think that I ought to stand by my promise, and that I can do so properly.' The neutral may, however, abstain when the war has been undertaken unjustly on the part of his ally; and when it is once begun no new engagement must in any case be entered into.8 It was not until 1788 that the right of a neutral state to give succour under treaty to a belligerent gave rise to serious, if to any, protest. Denmark, while fulfilling in favour of Russia an obligation of limited assistance contracted under treaty, declared itself to be in a state of amity with Sweden. The latter power acquiesced as a matter of convenience in the continuance of peace, but it placed on record a denial that the conduct of Denmark was permissible under the Law of Nations. Probably Sweden stood almost alone in her view as to the requirements of neutral duty. In 1785, the United States agreed with Prussia that neither one nor the other of the two states would let for hire, or lend, or give any part of its naval or military forces to the enemy of the other to help it or to enable it to act offensively or defensively against the belligerent party' to the treaty; and in 1 Martin, Hist. de France, lib. xcv. § ii. 2 Lord Stanhope, Hist. of England, vol. iii. 144, vol. iv. 49, and vol. vi. 86. De Martens, Rec. ii. 417 and 422. 3 Quæst. Jur. Pub. lib. i. c. ix. 4 The declaration and counter declaration are quoted in full by Phillimore, Commentaries upon International Law, iii. § 140. |