668
Ike Green bag.
for suspicion of the presence of noxious dis patches, in which case the mails should have been opened in the presence of the ship's officers and the objectionable dispatches re moved. The mail bags should then have been re-sealed and the vessel allowed to proceed on her voyage. In respect to the question raised by the s'nking of the Tlica and the Knight Comv.andcr, the modern rule is reasonably clear, although it might be wished that some of the authorities1 had made a clearer distinction 'The authorities are not fully agreed as to whether a neutral prize can ever be destroyed, but they all appear to limit the right, if it exists, to extreme cases of necessity. Hall (p. 741) says, emphatically, that "a neutral vessel must not be destroyed." He observes that "the principle that destruction involves compensation was laid down in the broadest manner by Lord Stowell, who said that "where a ship is neutral, the act of de struction cannot be justified to the neutral owner by the gravest importance of such an act to the public service of the captor's own State; to the neutral it can only be justified by a full restitu tion in value." Dana (see note 186 to Wheaton, p. 485) is of the opinion that "necessity will excuse the cap tor from the duty of sending in his prize. If the prize is unseaworthy for a voyage to the proper port, or where there is impending danger of im mediate recapture from an enemy's vessel in sight, or if an infections disease is on board, or other cause of a controlling character, the law of nations authorizes a destruction or abandonment of the prize, but requires all possible preserva tion of evidence, in the way of papers and per sons on board. And. even if nothing of pecu niary value is saved, it is the right and duty of the captor to proceed for adjudication in such a case, fot his own protection and that of his Govern ment, and for the satisfaction of neutrals." Law rence (p. 406) observes that "a broad line should be drawn between the destruction of enemy and neutral property," a distinction which Dana fails to make. Taylor (§ 557, p. 573) says "it is generally agreed that neutral prizes should never be burned." He does not seem to contemplate the possibility of sinking them. Professor Holland, in a letter to the London Times (see New York and London Times for August 5. 1904), gives the following summary of Lord StoweU's opinions on this subject: "An enemy's ship, after the crew has been placed in safety, may be destroyed. When there is any ground for believing that the ship, or any part of her cargo, i& neutral property, such action is jus tifiable only in cases of the gravest importance to the captor's own State after securing the ship's papers and subject to the right of neutral own ers to receive full compensation."
between the right of neutrals and belligerents in this matter. It is that neutral vessels or neutral cargoes must not be destroyed except in cases of extreme necessity a«id that, in case of such necessity, the ship's papers must be preserved for purposes of adjudica tion and indemnification of the owners of the ship and cargo who are entitled to full and adequate compensation for their losses. I'rizes belonging to the enemy* may be de stroyed for good military reasons, but the destruction of neutral property can only be justified on grounds of extreme necessitv. since it involves the destruction of a part of the evidence on which alone the capture can be justified and inasmuch as neutral prop erty does not vest in the captors until after it has been adjudicated upon. It is true that the Russian Prize Regu lations3 permit the destruction of prizes in a considerable number of contingencies, î'/j., unseaworthiness, danger of recapture, shortage of coal, difficulty on account of distance, and danger to the success of war"Enemy prizes were systematically destroyed during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. The destruction of enemy prizes by the Southern Confederacy has generally been justi fied on the ground that there were no nonblockaded ports to which they could be taken. Neutrals have nearly always, and enemies have generally, been exempt from such treatment. In 1870 the French burned two German vessels and refused restitution in spite of the fact that they had neutral goods on hoard. Captain Semmes of Alabama fame, who seems to have turned his cabin into a prize court, was in the habit of 're leasing ships whose cargoes were plainly neutral, on ransom. "But in a large number of the cases of those condemned and burned, there were claims for the cargoes as neutral property. Cap tain Semnes seems to have condemned the cargo, unless there was positive proof of its neutrality. This practice was carried on by him for four years, and was acquiesced in by neutral nations, who permitted their ships to be searched and their property adjudicated upon by these com manders." Snow's Cases, pp. 519-20. For a reproductipn of these investigations of Dr. Snow's, see Scott's Cases, note on pp. 932-33. Cf. Bernard, Neutrality^ p. 420. "For a reprint of the Russian "Prize Regula tions" from the London Gazette, in so far as they bear on the destruction of prizes, see the New York Tribune for August 8, 1904.
