The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-03-11
BELLIGERkNT RIGHTS
Effects That Would Follow the Recog-
milton of Cuba.
SPAIN WOULD PROFIT, TOO
She Would Gain the Right of
Search Opinions of Writ
ers on international
Law.

from une New YORK sun.
The talk of the right of the Cuban
patriots to recognition as belligerents
by this country has set Americans TO
asking what belligerent rights are, and
under what circumstances they may be
conferred upon revolutionists. When
an insurgent becomes a belligerent the
body which has opposed itself to the
existing government and demanded
and fought for an Independent gov
eminent passes from a band of men of
no standing to the place of an organ
lied political entity having equal
rights to those of the government IL at
tacks in the ports and territory of the
countries that recognize its belliger-
ency. and for the practical purposes
of carrying on its warfare IL has the
rights of a sovereign power; although
the question of the recognition of its
independence is separate from that of
its belligerency.
when an insurgent becomes a bel
ligerent, when you recognize an insur-
gent as a belligerent, you grant to him
the same rights in your ports that the
other party has" said Prof. j. b.
Moore, who lectures on international
law at Columbia college; that is the
substance of belligerent rights"
The recognition OF belligerent rights
is not solely to the advantage of the
insurgents" r. II. Dana, jr, says in a
note in his famous edition of Wheaton.
They gain the great advantage of n
recognized status, and the opportunity
to employ commissioned cruisers at
sea, and to exert all the power known
to maritime warfare, with the sanction
of foreign nations They can obtain
abroad loans. military and naval ma
terial, and enlist men, as against
everything but neutrality laws; their
flag and commissions are acknowledge
ed, their revenue laws are respected
and they acquire a quasi-poltical rec
ognition. On the other hand the pa
rent government is relieved from re-
sponsibility for acts done in the in
surgent territory; its blockade of its
own ports is respected, and IL acquires
a right to exert. against neutral COM
merce. all the powers of a party to
maritime war"
In another part of the same note.
which Is upon the recognition of an in
surgent as a belligerent, Dana says:
THE foreign state is bound and en-
titled to consider the preceding his
tory of the parties; the magnitude and
completeness OF the political and mill
tary organizations and preparations on
each side; the probable extent of the
conflict by sea and land; the probable
extent and rapidity of its development,
and above all. the probability that its
own merchant vessels, naval officers
and consuls may be precipitated into
sudden and difficult complications
abroad. The best that can be said is
that the foreign state may protect it
self by a seasonable decision-either
upon a test case that arises or by a
general prospective decision-while. on
the other hand, IL II makes the recog-
milton prematurely, IL is liable to the
suspicion of an unfriendly purpose to
the parent state
The whole passage. parts of which
only are quoted above, 1t is pointed
out in "Wharton's International Law
Digest" Is cited by Sir A. Cockburn in
his opinion in the Geneva tribunal,
with this prefix:
THE principles by which a neutral
state should be governed as to the cir
cumstances under which or the period
at which to acknowledge the belliger-
ent status of insurgents have been no.
where more ably or more fully stated
than by Mr. Dana, in his edition of
Wheaton, in a note"
On the subject of what the other
party gains by the recognition of in
surgents as belligerents. Wharton's
work presents this excerpt from Ber-
nard's Neutrality OF Great Britain:
1T Is easy to see that they (the
United States gained (by the acknowl-
edgment of confederate belligerency).
They gained the liberty to exercise
against British ships on the high seas
the rights of visit and search. of cap
turing contraband and of blockade.
rights which spring solely from the re-
lation of belligerent and neutral. and
which the neutral acknowledges by
recognizing the existence of that rela-
ton. The advantages reaped i'm mari
time war by the exercise of such rights
fall, where there is a disparity of force.
into the hands of the stronger bellig-
erent; where the disparity is great he
has monopoly OF them. for ne is able
to shut up his enemy in port and drive
him from the sea-"
But with the results to the insurgents
of the recognition of them as bellig-
ents neutral government is not pri-
marily concerned.
1T is a well-known fact" said Score
tary OF State Forsyth to Mr.. Gorostiza,
under date of Sept. 20, 1886. according
10 Wharton's Digest. that vessels OF
the South American provinces We're adj
mitted into the ports of the United
states under their own or any other
flags from the commencement of the
revolution. and IL is equally true that
throughout the various civil contests
that have taken place at different pc
RODS among the states that sprung
from that revolution. the vessels of
each OF the contendlng parties have
been alike permitted 20 enter the ports
or this country. IL has never been held
necessary as a preliminary 10 the ex-
tension OF the rights OF hospitality TO
efther that the chances of war
should be balanced and the probability
OF the eventual success determined. For
this purpose II has been deemed sufi- |
Gent that the party had declared its |
independence and at the time was ac-
tually maintaining IT,
such having been the course hith-
erto pursued by this government. how |
ever important IL might be to consider |
the PROBABILITY OF success, II a ques- |
uon should arise as TO the recognition ,
OF the independence OF Texas. IL is not |
70 be expected that IL should be made |
a prerequisite 20 the mere exercise OF |
hospitality implied by the admissIons i
OF the vessels OF that country into our /
ports. The exclusion OF fbe 1
vessels OF Texas. while those of MY
leo are admitted. is not deemed co,,o
patible with the strict neutrality which