Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-04-29
BAYARD AND BLOCKADES.

Day dilU OeuOI DeCdffd, luc OOiOllDldu
Minister at Washington, in relation to
the decree of the Colombian government
declaring the ports OF Sabinilla and Santa
Marta, in the Caribbean sea, and the
river port of Barranguillo, closed to foreign
comnerce, is of much interest, as it
clearly indicates that the new Admins
traticn is fully alive to all our foreign in
terests, and is prompt in defining and de-
Tending them. There is in Secretary
Bayard's letter tone of firmness and
decision that clearly indicates that the
stand which the Administration has
takeI will be maintained, and which must
prove to Senior Becarra and his govern
ment that when it desires to establish a
blockade in Colombian ports, it must
be done with an effective force, and
not merely with an authoritative declara-
ton that ports are blockaded.
The position of the government in the
matter of the Colombian ports is the
same which it has always taken, even so
long ago as 1871, when an ordinance of
Congress in that year declared that to
make a blockade effective, there must be
actually enough vessels OF the govern
ment seeking to blockade, to make en-
trance to the port dangerous. In this
Congress followed the example of the
convention of the Baltic powers in 1870,
which had defined a blockade to be the
same as that which Congress adopted the
year following. Napoleon sought to
blockade the ports of the British Empire
throughout the world by a mere declara-
ton 81 state of blockade. He did this
by hi; famous Berlin Decree of November
Dist, 1896. 1t was somewhat of an annoy
ance to English commerce, but was not
in any sense a blockade.
The reason for requiring so strict an
ENFORCEMENT of blockade, is that it is
an ex. IRENE and harsh war measure, and
makes the vessels and goods of neutrals
liable ito seizure and confscation for any
violation of the blockade, and if there
is notlforce sufficient to make it effectual,
although notice of such a state Of things
may Have been given to neutrals by the
propet authorities of the government en-
deavol,ing to maintain it, yet there is no
legal blockade. The object is to cut off
all cor nmerce with the blockaded port,
thereby preventing supplies of any ma
ture IN ON entering or leaving the nation,
aud I'll us crppling the enemy. But to
be bin ling, there must be actual Or con-
structive notice of the blockade before
any vessel can be held responsible for a
violation of it. If a vessel has run
blockade, it is only liable to capture until
the end of the voyage in which she run
ii. So if a blockade is raised before a
vessel}which has violated it has reached
her destination, she is not liable to seizure
after the raising of the blockade. The
whole subject is one of the most interest
ing in the Law of Nations, as around it
there are clustered the rights of beiliger-
ents and of neutrals, the questions of
what il contraband and what is not, and
what clrgoes neutral vessels may carry
and what ones they may not. 1t
was this question of what neu-
trails might carry and what not,
that gave rise to the controversy
with England in 1861 about the Trent
affair, the United States claiming that
the transportation of Mason and Sliddell
with their Confederate dispatches in an
English vessel to England, was viola
ton of the laws in regard to neutrality. /
The case, after much correspondence be-
tween Washington and Downing street,
was finally settled, although the question
as to tile right of a neutral to carry the
dispatches Of an enemy was not settled,
the views of our own jurists, such as Mr.. ]
Lawrence and Mr. Dana, not agreeing /
with ths English writer's.
1t is entertaining to think what would
have been the course of Mr.. Blaine in the
present. case of the blockade of the
Colombian ports, had he been Secretary
OF State, as his correspondence with Earl
Granvill e concerning the Bulwer-Clayton
treaty was of such a nature as to warrant
that it would have been brilliant at least,
it might have brought ridicule
upon us and compelled us to retire from
any position we might have taken. But
the present energetic action of Secretary
Bayard land his decisive stand on the
doctrine of blockades, will fur
nish the Republicans much to talk about
when Mr. Blaine is put in nomination I
lgain in pSSS, which he probably will be. /
.