Year: 1861

the American war.


The London Times has this editorial:


If this terrible contest between the North
and the South is to go on we must watch
ourselves very narrowly, or we shall be GER
taiuly involved in 1t. We have the two psr-
ties eagerly bidding for our aid, and jealously
watching our actions. We have merchants
and shipowners sharply alive to the oppor-
tunities of turning any circumstances to
advantage, and ready to test every point in
the law of blockade. The real business of
this war isindubitably the blockade of South
ern ports-not now, perhaps, for the last
cotton crop is, for the most part, stored in
our European warehouses;; but in a few
months the question will be whether the
North can hermetically seal the South, and
then Lancashire will be hungering for cot
ton, and the Federal States will be fainting
for the supplies by which it should be paid
for. But even already we see the commence
ment of future difficulties.


The American news we published yester-
day pictures to Us a single American war
steamer cruising off the harbor of Charleston
and declaring a strict blockade of "the
whole Southern coast of the United States of
America" The Niagara boards the Liver
pool ships and warns them off the coast, and
she is strictly within her belligerent rights
in SO doing. AT other times she is engaged
in most exciting chase of other less obedent
British craft which, under the hope of a good
freight, stand the risk Of race, and some
times make good their entrance into the
blockaded port.


AS time wears on these chases will become
much more numerous, and if Governor Sew
ard has already had occasion to utter dark
threats against the French Emperor for some
fancied tendencies of a Southern character,
we may expect what these complications
will be as soon as it becomes the direct Pc
cuniaTy interest of every merchant and ship.
owner of Europe to break this blockade of a
quarter of q continent. 1t will be found
very difficult to keep sealed what all the
world has an interest in breaking; and we
can not hope that the watchers will always
maintain an unfailing good humor in dealing
with the hosts of evaders. We may depend
upon it that we shall soon have revival of
those old questions so familiar in our history.
What the law of blockade is no one knows.
True, it may be read in treatises, and may
be found laid down in text books. But these
text books have not the authority to be de.
rived from consistency, and have never been
obeyed in practice.


They have for the most part, been written
by two different schools of jurists-the sub
jects Of warning powers and the subjects Of
neutral powers All the authorities of this
country are in favor of the most generous
Interpretation of the rights of beiligerent
IOWeISi lOE We nave dlWdy5 Deou DelUB6r6nL;
it has always been our interest TO give bel
ligerent power the strongest possible rights
over neutral ships; and our Prize Courts
have always been laying down doctrines
which the rest of the world repudiated as
illegal and untenaDle. The consequence is
that we shall now find ourselves in false
position in all these questions. We shall be
bound by our own decisions, which will tell
| against our own interests as neutrals, and
u shall haUa IN limit IN rnla nfD or;k
public law, which very much increase the
evils we must necessarily endure from the
blockade, however inefficient of the coast
which is to us so important both for exports
and imports.


We should have no right to complain of
this if there were really any code of maritime
law. But there is no such thing. If we were
OF war tomorrow, we should have no chance
OF enforcing against the neutral nations the
rules to which we ourselves are about to
submit. Pedants may look for the law of
| nations in the foiios of text-Writers, but
practical men will seek for it in the facts of
history. When we, as belligerents, have
sought to enforce our right to take an enc
my's goods out of friendly vessels, we have
always been met by a great league of all the
maritime nations, and have been obliged to
/ abate our pretensions. Wehave never found
it 70 much purpose TO quote the most revered
authorities in our favor. Denmark, and
Russia, and France, and Spain have always
been ready to make code for the occasion,
and that code we have been compelled to
accept We have kept it up as an old prin-
ciple just as we kept up our claims to be
sovereigns of France but it has never done
us any practical good, and it is now likely to
lead us into considerable practical difficulty.
There can be no dispute among those who
have looked into the subject that we have
never read the maritime law of nations as the
French have read ii, and that at no period
has the practice of Europe been uniform even
upon the most important principles which
guide us in our dealings with other nations
| when at war.


An this tends to future difficulties. IT'S
at this moment the anxious desire of every
| political party in this country to avoid be
ing in any way implicated in what is now
| going on beyond the Atlantic Never did
any people look on with calmer or more
| Judicial mind upon any event passing ont.
side their own land than do the British
people on this American quarrel. The
prevailing feeling is one of simple regret.
We sympathise with the exaggerated resent.
ment of neither party. But we have hith-
erto felt no immediate effects operating upon
ourselves. We can not answer that eur
thoughts would be as calm, or our Judgment
as impartial, if all Lancashire were block.
AIDED by the feet which blockades the South
ern ports, and if the ships which keep those
ports closed were at the same time keeping
closed the workshops of Manchester and
Sheffield. The law of blockade might then
come to be discussed in a very different
spirit. Now. while it is yet time, it is we
think, the duty of the Governments of
Europe to come to some general under
standing upon the subject, and to agree to
propositions which shall form real public
law. We are, for the first time, neutral
power; we hope to remain so; we no longer
feel it to be a vital interest to sustain
exaggerated pretensions Ia favor of belliger-
ent powers. We draw nearer now to those
principles with which we have always in
former days been in conflict, and we might
escape many difficulties which are not far
ahead if we could give universal authority
to some well considered exposition of the
law of blockade, the rights Of neutrals, aud
the description Of articles contraband of
war. .r.


A RVTaUuNyus Row -,