the arguments on the absentee question, it never was proposed to create a bounty on absenteeism.

II.-Maritime Captures and Commercial Blockades.-By T. E. Cliffe Leslie, Esq. Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Economy in the Queen's College, Belfast.*

[Read January 29th, 1855.]

THE chief object of this paper is to point out the system of maritime war by which the resources of this country will be least impaired by the contest in which it is engaged, and most effectively employed in bringing it to a successful issue. But although the questions involved must be discussed with especial reference to our present national interests, there will be occasion to show the necessity of bearing in mind that they are also questions of permanent importance in international jurisprudence. The rules of that jurisprudence have established a difference between the liability to capture during war of private property on land and at sea. This distinction is generally defended on the grounds-first, that the citizens of an invaded country are regarded as subjects of the victorious state, and protected accordingly, but that as the capture of merchant ships does not subjugate the hostile state, as the taking possession of its territory does, the property in them is not entitled to similar protection; secondly, that in maritime hostilities there is no mode of obtaining victory and compensation by the seizure of public revenue, and in order to weaken the naval power of the enemy, it is necessary to attack his commerce and merchant navy.

To the first of these arguments it seems a sufficient answer, that for many centuries private property on land has been respected in the case of military operations in an enemy's country, for strategical or political purposes, without any design of permanent conquest; and has, indeed, been least respected where the latter has been the object—as in Napoleon's wars; nor would it be regarded as a justification of pillage, that the sovereign of this pillaging army had no intention of reducing the inhabitants into subjection to his crown. The second argument assumes the very proposition at issue, that it is the interest of a great maritime power to exert its naval force, for the purpose of destroying not only the enemy's fleets and marine fortifications, but also his commercial intercourse with other countries. Besides, a military power might claim the same justification for confiscating all the property belonging to its enemy's subjects which its armies could reach, asserting that it was done for the purpose of bringing the war to a conclusion by diminishing the enemy's resources, abstracting his means of taxation, and convincing his subjects of the impolicy of continuing the contest. This argument may indeed be used with much greater

* This paper has been abridged for the press.

† Alison's History of Europe, chap. xxxiii.

force in the case of military than naval operations, for a victorious army can spread ruin through a country, and make war support war, in a manner impossible in maritime warfare. This is very clearly exemplified by Alison, in his account of the advantages which the French armies derived from their mode of making war in the Peninsula, and the difficulties to which the English were exposed from theirs. The historian adds, however, that honesty is the best policy in the end, and " the same moral law applicable to the private villain, and the public robber;" and in another passage observes, that "in warfare it is of the utmost importance that no attacks should be made, except upon public property or merchandize afloat, and that the piratical system of threatening with destruction a city not fortified, if it does not redeem itself by a contribution, should be avoided."

But upon what principle is it justifiable to seize the entire property of a merchant when on sea, while it is a "piratical system to exact even a contribution if it happen to be on shore? What "moral law" sanctions the former, while it pursues the latter with an inexorable Nemesis? It cannot be upon higher ground than its expediency, that any one will defend the distinction. Its expediency is therefore the chief subject of our inquiry.

At the outset it must be perceived that there is an objection to the capture of private property at sea quite peculiar to this mode of attacking the resources of an enemy. For it involves this dilemma, that if his subjects are permitted to export and import in neutral vessels, and only liable to capture in their own, provision is made by the system itself for defeating its object to a great extent. If, on the other hand, neutral merchants are prevented from carrying on the commerce of the enemy, and acting as agents on his behalf; if they are exposed to all the vexation and loss attending the promiscuous seizure of merchandize belonging to a state with which their own country is at peace; and if, added to this, their country is deprived of commodities which it has been accustomed to consume, or of a lucrative trade, it is the inevitable consequence that the system is likely to add to instead of diminishing the enemy's resources, through the active alliance of some, and the sympathy and moral support of other previously neutral states.

In this dilemma the British government was placed at the commencement of the present war. It could not be forgotten then, that at the commencement of this century all the maritime states of the civilized world were at one time in arms against Great Britain, on account of the rigour with which she enforced the ancient usages of hostilities at sea; nor could the suffering and ruin occasioned by the American Non-Intercourse Act of 1811 be forgotten, followed in the next year by a sanguinary contest. In 1853 the value of our exports to America had risen to nearly £24,000,000; and even the loss of this market would by no means represent the entire loss arising from a rupture of commercial relations with the United States, for we import from them the most important materials of our trade with the whole world.

Nor are indications wanting that a bitter recollection of the belligerent rights formerly asserted by Great Britain survives in the

American mind. (See the President's message to Congress in December last.)

The British government had therefore strong political reasons for modifying the ancient usages of maritime warfare, and these reasons were supported by others founded on our commercial interests.

"We have only," says the Economist, "to name the articles of our import trade with Russia, in order to show itsenormous value, and its primary importance to the manufactures and general trade of this country. They consist chiefly of grain, tallow, linseed, bristles, flax, hemp, sheep's wool, iron, copper, and timber. We receive from Russia more than nine-elevenths of the bristles we import, about three-fourths of the flax, nearly two-thirds of the hemp, fivesixths of the linseed, and five-sevenths of the tallow."-Economist, February 18th and 25th, 1854.

The relative loss which would have ensued to Great Britain and Russia from stopping the import of these commodities may be exemplified in the case of one of them. Prior to the war, Russian flax formed one half of the total quantity, home-grown and foreign, used in British manufactures. All that Russia could lose, if deprived of the British market, would be the price of the raw material for the present, still having it to sell on the first opportunity; while to Great Britain, the loss involved would be not only the much higher value of the manufactured fabric, but perhaps the ruin of the linen manufacture, in which so much capital has been sunk, to which so many operatives have been trained, and by which so many families are supported. If half the usual supply of flax were withdrawn, the other half could not be profitably manufactured. The British linen manufacturer is exposed to the rivalry, not only of the linen manufacturers of America, Germany, Belgium, and Russia itself, but of the cotton manufacturers both at home and abroad. The price of British linens could not therefore rise so as to compensate for a great increase in the price of the raw material. Besides, it is well known that the less the quantity of any material worked up in a manufacture, the greater is the cost of manufacturing each portion of it. And the sites of manufacture move to the cheapest places of production. So our linen manufactures would perish to deprive Russia of a single market, while the Russian grower would not lose other markets, and the British grower would be deprived of much of the necessary supply of imported flax seed. The injury to Russia would be trifling and temporary-to this country heavy and permanent. That it would be permanent we may learn from the results of the rupture of commercial relations with America in 1811. lasting injury," says Alison, "has been occasioned to British manufacturing interests by the forcible direction of American capital and industry to manufactures. Another evil has arisen from the jealousy and animosity against this country, which have thus been engendered in the very States that, when the rupture commenced, were most warmly attached to our alliance."

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It has, however, been contended, that in war every national interest becomes subordinate to the one paramount object of distressing and weakening the enemy. We can afford to lose infinitely more than Russia; we are therefore called upon to fire upon both

friend and foe, and to involve in one common ruin-not, indeed, the soldiers of both armies, as the Russians are said to have done at Balaklava-but the peaceful merchants of both countries, and the families dependent on them for support. To this, however, there is one fatal objection. It could not be carried out. No human ingenuity could devise means of preventing the productions of Russia from finding their way into foreign markets and our own ports. Certificates of origin have been proposed; but what difficulty would there be in obtaining neutral certificates, and what possibility would there be of distinguishing the hemp, flax, linseed, and tallow of Russia from similar produce of other countries?

The impossibility and the impolicy of entirely excluding Russian imports, and the danger of embroiling ourselves with neutral states, were considerations which the Government could not overlook. But the value of our export trade with Russia seems to be universally underrated. It is true, our annual exports to that country have not reached latterly the value of £2,000,000; but the difference has been paid in the products of our colonies, such as sugar and coffee, so that the cessation of all trade, direct and indirect, would involve a proportionate diminution of our exports to the colonies, and the market for colonial produce.

Thus it has happened that while nothing has been done by governments during nine and thirty years of peace to civilize by conventions the laws of war, which have come down from a time when there was never peace for commerce, and the pirate's occupation was more honorable than the merchant's, peace has itself made laws for war, by creating international interests which warfare cannot destroy.

The orders in council of last spring, introduced three important changes into the practice of maritime hostilities,—the abandonment of privateering, the practical adoption of the maxim that "free ships make free goods," and the sanction of indirect trade with the enemy. (See the order in council of the 15th of April, 1854.) But the old system has remained in force to a great extent, by means of the restrictions on neutral trade with the enemy's ports, in consequence of the blockades in the Baltic and Black Sea, and the retention of the right to capture enemy's goods in enemy's ships. What effect then have the blockades and captures of 1854 had upon our resources and those of Russia? No one pretends that the prizes taken in the Black Sea, or the stoppage of the supply of corn from Odessa, have added to our strength or perceptibly diminished that of the enemy. Let us look then at the operations in the Baltic. In consequence of large importations before the blockade there commenced, the statistics of our imports and trade in 1854 do not sufficiently enable us to estimate the results of having to draw our supplies of flax, hemp, tallow, linseed, bristles, timber, either from Russia itself overland through Prussia, or from more distant places; in either case of course at greater expense. It was however supposed that the increased cost of transit would be partly met by lower prices to the Russian producers. As far as we can obtain statistics, however, it would appear that, during the blockade, at least as high prices were obtained in Russia for the produce in question as before

the war. And as we must always pay in addition to those prices the cost of transit to Great Britain, we should not have so much reason to rejoice at a fall of price, which would give an advantage over our manufacturers to those of the continental states adjoining Russia, and of Russia itself.

It has however been argued, that the higher prices paid by this country for the articles for which it had previously been chiefly dependent upon Russia, have attracted supplies from other places, and tend to raise up new and flourishing industries in our colonies and dependencies. If this were true to any considerable extent, the result would be decidedly mischievous; for unless the political economy we have sought to teach other nations be false, it is most unwise to divert production from its natural course by artificial prices. And what would be the consequence, on the return of peace and Russian imports, to those new industries? Must it not resemble the effect of the sudden repeal of a high protective duty? But in fact we continued during the blockade to derive principally from Russia the same commodities as before, in smaller quantities and at higher prices. More hemp and linseed, we are indeed triumphantly told, were imported in the month ending December 5th, 1854, than in the corresponding month, 1853. But the blockade was then raised, and the returns of the preceding months of each year show a very different result. And it is not the supply of such a commodity as hemp that will fall off first in any war waged by Great Britain; for being essential to naval operations, it must be obtained at any cost. It is elsewhere the privation will be felt. (The paper, as read, contained here some statistics and facts, showing the actual effects of the blockade upon the trade of the United Kingdom in 1854.)

Moreover, when we examine the effects of the blockades and captures of 1854 upon the resources of Great Britain and of the Russian empire, we must take into consideration not only the results to our manufacturers and trade, but the cost of maintaining an enormous fleet to produce such insignificant results as have been obtained, and the distraction of our admirals' energies, and the powers of our navy from the direct operations of war. We captured, during the blockade in the Baltic, 92 vessels, of which "those belonging to Russian subjects were chiefly the property of small traders, and the loss fell upon an uninfluential portion of the population;" while a considerable number belonged to the merchants of other countries. It is however asserted that we entirely stopped the supply of salt and coal which the Russians were accustomed to receive through the Baltic. But in the Russian dominions there are inexhaustible salt mines and brine springs, and remarkable facilities for internal transport by rivers and canals in summer and sledges in winter; and it is upon the poorest subjects of the Czar that the privation of salt, from a rise in its price, or cessation of the supply along the coasts, would fall. Can it be supposed that their privations would move the resolution of the Czar?

As to coal, De Custine tells us that birch-wood was the only fuel used in St. Petersburgh when he was there in 1839; so probably its inhabitants could subsist on wood fires through two or three winters

now.

Coal is certainly necessary for a fleet of steamers, but the less