Page:Handbook of maritime rights.djvu/53

stopped. And when we consider that the carrying trade of almost every nation is, in peace, carried on by itself, and that England is almost the only nation which has a carrying trade over and above the requirements of its own commerce, it is obvious that this claim to carry belligerents^ goods is not a claim for the retention of a privilege which the neutral enjoyed in peace, but for the acquisition of an advantage which the neutral never even pretended to in peace. In a famous instrument in which neutral rights are put forward, it is said that "there is no reason why the neutral should forego the considerable advantage offered him by a state of war between other nations." This pretension at any rate puts the matter in its true light. It is in fact a claim to make profit out of its neighbours' calamities, to coin money out of their blood, and reap a harvest from their misfortunes—a claim, when analysed, as preposterous and as monstrous as was ever put forward. And