Exclusion of such neutral ports. But though, if a vessel so commissioned is ships from admitted at all within the ports of the neutral, it must be accorded the full privileges attached to its public character, there is no international usage which dictates that ships of war shall be allowed to enter foreign ports, except in cases of imminent danger or urgent need. It is fully recognised that a state may either refuse such admission altogether, or may limit the enjoyment of the privilege by whatever regulations it may choose to lay down. It is therefore eminently to be wished that a practice may be established under which a neutral government shall notify at the commencement of a war, that all vessels mixed up in certain specified ways, whether as agents or as objects, with an infringement of its neutrality, will be excluded from its ports. The rules established by the empire of Brazil during the American civil war adopted this precaution, though in dangerously vague language, by directing that no belligerent who had once violated the neutrality of the empire should be admitted to its ports during the continuance of hostilities, and that all vessels attempting acts tending to such violation should be compelled to leave its maritime territory immediately, without receiving any supplies.1 No practice as yet exists with respect to the exaction by the neutral sovereign of reparation for acts done outside his jurisdiction, but flowing from a proper authorities of the nation case of Great Britain, State Papers, North America, 1872, p. 24. 1 State Papers, North America, 1873; Protocols, &c. 202. Mr. Bernard, however, shows that such a practice would not be unattended with inconvenience. Neutrality of Great Britain, 414. violation of his neutrality, when neither the captured property nor the peccant vessel return to his territory. resistance § 28. A belligerent who, when attacked in Effect of neutral territory, elects to defend himself, instead of by a bellitrusting for protection or redress to his host, by his tacked own violation of sovereignty frees the neutral from within responsibility. In 1814 an American privateer, the General Armstrong, was found at anchor in Fayal harbour by an English squadron. A boat detachment from the latter approached the privateer and was fired upon. The next day one of the vessels of the squadron took up position near the General Armstrong to attack her. The crew, not finding themselves able to resist, abandoned and destroyed her. The United States alleged that the Portuguese Governor had failed in his duty as a neutral, and demanded a large compensation for the owners of the privateer. After much correspondence the affair was submitted in 1851 to the arbitration of the President of the French Republic, who held that as Captain Reid, of the privateer, had not applied at the beginning to the neutral, but had used force to repel an improper aggression, of which he stated himself to be the object, he had himself disregarded the neutrality of the territory in which he was, and had consequently released its sovereign from all obligations to protect him otherwise than by his good offices; that from that moment the Portuguese Government could not be responsible for the results of a collision which had taken place in contempt of its sovereign rights.'1 1 Ortolan, ii. 547, gives the text of the President's award. Story (Anne, iii Wheaton, 447) seems to have considered a belli G gerent attacked in neutral territory neutral territory. Reparation due by a neutral state for ity. § 29. A neutral state which overlooks such violations of its neutrality as it can rightly be expected to prevent, or which neglects to demand repermitted violation paration in the appropriate cases, becomes itself an of neutral-active offender. It is bound therefore to offer satisfaction in some form to the belligerent whose interests have been prejudiced by its laches. The nature of this satisfaction is a matter for agreement between the parties. It may consist either in an apology, in monetary compensation for actual losses, or in a combination of the two; and M. Bluntschli is certainly premature in laying down as a rule of law that it is incumbent on the neutral state to indemnify the injured belligerent from the losses which he would have avoided had the duties of the neutral been properly fulfilled.'1 Hospitality and asylum. 6 his § 30. Although it is incumbent on the neutral not to lend his territory for purposes of of war, right to admit his friends within it extends to the reception of belligerent forces under such conditions as shall guard against any abuse of his hospitality. Custom and the inherent difference between land and marine war have rendered these conditions unlike in the two cases. Perhaps the only occasion which hostilities on land afford to the neutral of extending his hospitality to belligerent persons other than those who resort to his country for commercial or private reasons, and who have therefore no relation to the forces of a war, is when a beaten army or individual fugitives take refuge in his territory from the pursuit of their enemy. Humanity and friendship alike recommend him to receive them, but his duty to the other belligerent requires that they shall not again start from his soil in order to resume hostilities; and it has To land belligerent. 1 Droit International, § 779 bis. been the invariable practice in late wars to disarm troops crossing the neutral frontier and to intern them till the conclusion of peace. The convention under which Switzerland received the army of General Clinchant suggests a difficulty which may in the future interfere with the continuance of neutral custom in the precise form which it wears at present. It would be intolerably burdensome to a neutral state to maintain as guests for a long time any considerable body of men; on the other hand by levying the cost of their support upon the belligerent an indirect aid is given to his enemy, who is relieved from the expense of keeping them, and the trouble of guarding them as prisoners of war, while he is as safe from the danger of their reappearance in the field as if they were in his own fortresses. Perhaps the equity of the case and the necessity of precaution might both be satisfied by the release of such fugitives under a convention between the neutral and belligerent states by which the latter should undertake not to employ them during the continuance of the war. 31. Marine warfare so far differs from hostilities To naval forces. on land that the forces of a belligerent may enter neutral territory without being under stress from their enemy. Partly as a consequence of the fiction of extraterritoriality of public ships of war, partly because of the inevitable conditions of navigation, it is not the custom to apply the same rigour of precaution to naval as to military forces. A vessel of war may enter and stay in a neutral harbour without special reasons; she is not disarmed on taking refuge after defeat; she may obtain such repair as will enable her to continue her voyage in safety, she may take in such provisions as she needs, and if a steamer she may fill up with coal; nor is there anything to prevent her from enjoying the security of neutral waters for so long as may seem good to her. But in the treatment of ships, as in all other matters in which the neutral holds his delicate scale between two belligerents, a tendency towards the enforcement of a harsher rule becomes more defined with each successive war. It is easy to fix the proper measure of repairs; difficulties, which have already been discussed, may sometimes occur with reference to supplies of coal or provisions; but if a belligerent can leave a port at his will the neutral territory may become at any moment a mere trap for an enemy of inferior strength. Accordingly, during a considerable period, though not very generally or continuously, neutral states have taken more or less precaution against the danger of their waters being so used.1 Perhaps the usual custom until lately may be stated as having been that the commander of a vessel of war was required to give his word not to commit hostilities against any vessel issuing from a neutral port shortly before him, and that a privateer as being less a responsible person was subjected to detention for twenty-four hours.2 The disfavour however with which privateers have long been regarded has not infrequently led to their entire exclusion, save in cases 1 So long ago as 1759 Spain laid down the rule that the first of two vessels of war belonging to different belligerents to leave one of her ports should only be followed by the other after an interval of twenty-four hours, Ortolan, ii. 257. In 1778 the Grand Duke of Tuscany forbade both ships of war and privateers to go out for twenty-four hours after a ship whether enemy or neutral (di qualsivoglia bandiera), De Martens, Rec. iii. 25. The Genoese rule was the same; Venice was contented with the promises of the |
