The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-16 00:00:00

of a powerful and interested party in Parliament, who
called for measures to prevent the importation of American
cotton into England ; and this occurred at a time when our
dependence on the produce of that region was, perhaps, not
equal to a twentieth part of that of the present day.
The Crimean war, however, affords us a more recent
example. That war was declared in March, 1854, but the
ports of Southern Russia were not declared in a state of
blockade until March, 1855. The Allies temporised for a
year with their right and power to close the commercial
ports of the Black Sea, whilst carrying on the most sail 4
guinary struggle before the naval arsenal of Sebastopol,
in order to allow the exportation of food from Russia, to
make good the deficient harvests in England and France.
Upwards of half a million of quarters of grain reached our
shores from that region, in 1854. Here, at least, is a pre-
cedent for the policy of restricting b'ockades to fortified
places, and leaving commercial ports unmolested. If we
turn to the operations in the Baltic, during the same war,
we find that our blockade of Cronstadt had merely the
effect of diverting the produce of Russia, destined for -Eng-
land, into more costly overland channels. An attempt was
made, similar to that of interested parties in 1813, referred
to above, to induce our Government to prevent the impor-
tation of Russian produce into this country through Prussia,
which drew from the Dundee Chamber of Commerce a me-
morial declaring that the raw material from Russia was in-
dispensable to the very existence of the industry of that dis-
trict. After due deliberation, our Governmeut refuses to
require a certificate of origin at the Custoru-house, or to
offer any other impediment to the importation of Russian
hemp, flax, tallow, &c., into this country through the
territory of the neutrals. The consequence was
that Prussia, which sent us tallow to the value
of £l5O only in 1853, was enabled, in 1855, to supply
us with that article to the amount of £1,837,300; and
other Russian commodities reached this country in a simi-
lar. It is only necessary to point to the examples of China,
Mexico, &c., to show that in our hostilities with the weaker
maritime powers, we carefully eschew the policy of resort-
ing, as a means of coercion, to the blockade of their com-
mercial ports.

A fair deduction from these facts and premises leads as
to a very grave national dilemma. We persist in uphold-
ing a belligerent right, which we have always shrunk
from enforcing, and shall never rigorously apply, by
which we place in the hands of other belligerents the
power, at any moment, of depriving a large part of our
population of the supply of the raw materials of their
industry and of the necessaries of life. In this respect the
question of blockade is essentially different from that of
the capture of private property at sea. In the latter case
we are only liable to injury when we choose to become
belligerents, whereas, in the former, we are exposed to
serious calamities as neutrals; and England, by proclaim-
ing the policy of non-intervention, has recently consti-
tuted herself the great neutral Power. In this capacity we
are now enduring the effects of a blockade, by which it is
estimated that the earnings of labour, in the cotton manu-
facture alone, are curtailed to the extent of a quarter of a
million sterling a week. Should it continue it will, I fear,
bring many of the evils of war home to our doors, and
plunge an ingenious and industrious population, whose re-
cent improvemement and elevation we have witnessed with
pride, into the depths of pauperism and misery. Nor have
we any assurance that this will prove a solitary case. I can,
imagine a combination of events, not more improbable than
the blockade of the cotton region of the United States by
land and sea would have appeared to be three years ago, by
which we may be cut off from all commercial intercourse
with other countries on which we are largely dependent for
raw materials and food.

Speaking abstractedly, and not in reference to the
present blockade—for we are precluded from plead
ing our sufferings as a ground of grievance against
a people whose proposals for the mitigation of the
barbarous maritime code we have rejected—l do
not hesitate to denounce, as opposed to the principles of
natural justice, a system of warfare which inflicts greater
injuries on an unoffending community than on a belli-
gerent. Certain I am that such a system is incompatible
with the new commercial policy to which we have unre-
servedly committed ourselves. Free trade, in the widest
definition of the term, means only the division of labour
by which the productive powers of the whole earth are
brought into mutual co-operation. If this scheme of uni-
versal dependence is to be liable to sudden dislocation, when-
ever two Governments choose to go to war, it converts &
manufacturing industry, such as ours, into a lottery, is
which the lives and fortunes of multitudes of men are
at stake. Ido not comprehend how any British states-
man, who consults the interests of his country, and un-
derstands the redolution which free trade is effecting
in the relations of the world, can advocate the mainten-
ance of commercial blockades. If I shared their view, I
should shrink from promoting the indefinite growth
of a population whose means of subsistence would be liable
to be cut off at any moment by a belligerent power, against
whom we should have no right of resistance, or even of
complaint.

It must surely be in mere irony that the advocates of such
a policy as this ask—of what use would our navy be in case
of war, if commercial blockades were abolished t For
nation that has no access to the rest of the world but bl
sea, and a large part of whose population is dependent for
food on foreign countries, the chief use of a navy should
surely be to keep open its communications, not to close
them.

Than, is annthar brannh of this subjnot to which a recent
occurrence has imparted peculiar importance. We require
a clear definition of the circumstances which confer on
belligerent the right of search. The old and universaliy
admitted rule that any maritime power, when at was, wag
entitled everywhere to stop and visit the merchant vessels
of neutrals, is allowed to be unsuited to this age of extended
commerce, of steamers, and postal packets. The main c;tr
ject which belligerents had in view in the exercise of this
power was the capture of enemy's property. But, since the
Faris declaration exempts the goods of an enemy frora
seizure in neutral bottoms, there is little motive left for
preserving this belligerent right; and the question would
receive a very simple solution by assimilating the practice,
in time of war to that which prevails in time of peace.
Merchant vessels on the high seas are, during peace, con.
sidored and treated as a part of the territory to which they
belong. There is no point in which the maritime powers
are more clearly understood than that, excepting cases of
special convention to the contrary, such as that for sup-
pressing the African slave trade, the flags of merchantmen
afford an absolute protection against visitation by an alien
ship of war. This rule applies, of course, only to the high
seas ; for when foreign merchant vessels approach so near
the coast of a maritime state as to place themselves within
its municipal jurisdiction, they are subject to all its police
and revenue regulations. Now, why should not this be the
invariable law of the sea, in time of war as well as of
peace ? Because two maritime powers in some quarter of
the globe choose to enter upon hostilities affords no good
reason why neutral merchant ships, sailing in every seas
should be sdbjected to their authority.
This change would simplify the question of contraband
of war, and thus tend to obviate the risks of international
disputes. An article is rendered contraband of war only by
its hostile destination. Were the right of search on the
high seas in time of war abolished, the only admissible
proof of this destination would be the fact of the vessel
being found within the waters of a belligerent state. if
those waters were in the possession of a hostile power, the
jurisdiction would appertain to the fleet of that power, and
a neutral merchant vessel, containing articles contraband of
war, entering voluntarily within that jurisdiction, would he
ipso facto liable to capture. As to the question what sheaf
under such circumstances, constitute an unlawful cargo,
I see no motive why we should seek to multiply impedi-
ments to commerce by extending the category of article
contraband of war beyond that proposed by the United
States, viz., arms and ammunition.

Without dwelling on minor details, the three great re-
forms in international maritime law embraced in the pre-
ceding argument are—

1. The exemption of private property from capture at
sea, during war, by armed vessels of every kind.
2. Blockades to be restricted to naval arsenals, and to /I
r
towns besieged at the same time on land, with the ence
tion of articles contraband of war.

3. The merchant ships of neutrals on the high seas to
be inviolable to the visitation to alien government vessels
in time of war as in time of peace.

It is at the option of the English Government at any
time to enter upon negotiations with the other great
powers for the revision of the maritime node, and I speal
advisedly in expressing my- belief that it depends on 1115
alone whether the above reforms are to be carried into
eflect. I will only add that I regard these changes
the necessary corollary of the repeal of the navigation Irmo
the abolition of the corn laws, and the abandonment of our
colonial monopoly. We have thrown away the sceptre of
force, to confide in the principle of freedom. Under this
new regime our national fortunes have prospered beyond
all precedent. During the last 14 years the increase in our
commerce has exceeded its entire growth during the previ-
ous thousand years of relance on force, cunning and mono'
This should encourage us to go forward, in the full
faith that every fresh impediment removed from the pall
of commerce, whether by sea or land, and whether in peace
or war, will augment our prosperity, at the same time that
it will promote the general interests of humanity.—Believe
me, my dear sir, yours very sincerely, H. COBDEN.
Henry Ashworth, Esq., President of the
Manchester Chamber of Commerce.

MILITARY DISCIPLINE AT BERLIN.,--.A commu-
nication from Grandenz to the People's Gazette at Berlin
says :—" A few mornings back the company of captain 8.,
of the Bth regiment of infantry of Eastern
Prussia, had es"
sembled at parade. Captain B. appeared, when, with the
edThe commander, l‘i'
exception of the lieutenant, ensign, and sergeant-major, no
one returned the regimental salute. The captain then called
20 men from the ranks,,iv hwahtolsobethyeed,rabauttteia.,nmoyrdlaedrst?o, the
dwhole
eil
ecompanynhept , was
was unattended ene du. emd
summoned,
every one replied.
asked. To this there was no reply, but
on his asking i`
any of them had complaints , and to his salute
to make, they replied as if with
The consequence
a.nd ten
one voice, ' All I'has been that Captain
B. has been provisionally suspended from his functions?
arrested. An inquiry i 6
The articles of waxenhav • the going on. .
and a sub-officer
f the re • , e since been read to
other canpanoo 0 gulaeAt. I