is so felt that an uninformed and non-technical public insists upon such naval dispositions as appeal to its crude judgment. Here lies the most serious danger of all.
In strict International Law a captured merchant ship must be taken to a port of the capturer, where lawyers will argue at great length as to the exact definition of the word contraband, the legality of the capture and half a dozen other things. Were there any guarantee that all such formulae would be strictly observed, then lawyers would be almost as useful and valuable as cruisers, and the problems of commerce defence much simplified. There is not, however, the slightest prospect that any nation at war is going to tie its hands with legal questions more than it is absolutely compelled to do. When Monk, on the eve of the Anglo-Dutch war made his famous remark, 'What matters this or that reason? What we want is more of the trade that the Dutch now have,'—he uttered an eternal verity, capable of wide application. In any future war in which the British are likely to be engaged and in which British trade is imperilled, the enemy will undoubtedly 'want' that trade. And the want will exceed any respect he may have for International Law that is likely to interfere with his aims. Consequently the legal aspects of the question may be dismissed as not worth consideration—Might alone will make Right.[1] Probably only the threat of the
- ↑ See Chapter on ' International Law.'
