Section 5 Carriage of Contraband. (Absolute and Conditional Contraband: Continuous Voyages: Unqualified Captors: The Declaration of London)
The letters included in the preceding sections 2 and 3 touched incidentally upon carriage of contraband, in relation to other departments of the law affecting neutrals. The eight letters which follow, suggested respectively by the Spanish-American, the Boer, and the Russo-Japanese wars, deal exclusively with this topic, which seems likely to be henceforth governed no longer only by customary and judge-made law, but largely also by written rules, such as those suggested by the unratified Declaration of London of 1909.
(Absolute and Conditional Contraband)
The divergence which has so long existed between Anglo-American and Continental views upon contraband was very noticeable at the commencement of the war of 1898, which gave occasion to the letter which immediately follows. While the Spanish Decree of April 23 set out only one list of contraband goods, the United States Instructions of June 20 recognised two lists—viz. of “absolute” and of “conditional” contraband, including under the latter head “coal when destined for a naval station, a port of call, or a ship or ships of the enemy; materials for the construction of railways or telegraphs, and money, when such materials or money are destined for an enemy’s forces, provisions, when destined for an enemy’s ship or ships, for a place besieged.”
An answer was thus supplied to the question suggested in this letter, as to articles ancipitis usus.