The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-17
THE THREE RULES.
From the N. Y. World.


In order to appreciate how different the
obligations of neutrality contained in the
three treaty rules are from those for which
Great Britain contended during our civil war,
it is necessary to bear in mind that the court
in the Alexandra case, and the Queen minis
try all along, insisted that unless a ship was
actually armed in the neutral jurisdiction,
and ready to commit hostilities the moment
she left, she was not within the prohibitions
of international law. Although all the ele-
ments of hostile expeditions against us were
obtained in and issued out of the port of
Liverpool, still if they were to be united out
side the territorial jurisdiction of Great Bri-
tain, that country was not responsible for the
acts of hostile instruments when completed.
England also claimed that cruiser which
escaped from Liverpool and became at sea an
armed vessel of the Confederacy under the
commission of Jefferson Davis was a legiti-
mate war vessel of lawful belligerent, and
no more subject to British jurisdiction in the
colonial ports of that country than public
armed cruiser of the United States.
The three rules laid down in the treaty
change all this.
BY the first Great Britain should not only
have prevented cruiser from fitting in the
port of Liverpool, but from departing. By
the second rule she ought not to have per-
mitted the Confederates to use her territorial
colonial waters as a naval base to renew or
augment in any manner the supplies, or arms,
or men of the Anglo Confederate cruisers. By
the first rule she admits her obligation to use
''due diligence" to prevent the fitting, equip
ping, or arming any vessel about which there
is reasonable ground" to believe she is in
tended TO cruise or carry on war against a
friendly power. This disposes for ever, we
repeat, of the claim that a vessel to be cul-
pable needs to be armed in neutral waters
So in the second branch of the first rule the
neutral is bound to prevent the departure of
any vessel which has been in its waters
specially adapted in whole or in part for
warlike use. In addition to all this Great
Britain obligates herself by the third rule
to exercise educ diligence" in her ports and
waters, imperial and colonial, over all persons
therein, to prevent them from violating any
of the provisions contained in the first two
rules, and she stipulates not only to obey
these rules as to us, but ''to bring them to
the knowledge of other maritime powers and
to invite them to accede TO them"
To appreciate how unwelcome such doc
trines must have been to portion at least of
the British members of the High Commits
sion one has but to refer TO the recent vol
ume by Professor Bernard, one of the COM
missioners. In that most valuable and in
structive book he contends that armament
and condition to Immediately commit hos
tilities are necessary to make up such hes
tile expedition as a neutral is bound to pre-
vent leaving its jurisdiction.
The treaty tears up these doctrines, in
their application to the ineulpated cruisers
sSd to the imperial and colonial ports oi
/ Great Britain, by the roots, because while
! Professor Bernard justifes that GoVernmen
in giving military food, clothing, and shelter
in the West Indies and Australia, tC
the escaped and fleeing crimi