Neutral vessels were therefore either induced by the Allied Powers to enter allied ports voluntarily for the purpose of search and censorship, or were brought in involuntarily. In their pro test against this practice the United States did not complain so much that the exercise of jurisdiction over such vessels was abused, as that the Allied Powers, by sheer naval force, com pelled neutral steamship lines to cause their mail steamers to put into allied ports, and thus subject them to the control of the territorial sovereign. The Allied Powers justified this practice on the ground of necessity.
Reprisals.—Even neutrals may suffer by measures of reprisal taken by one belligerent without having any legal ground of com plaint. The British Order in Council, Feb. 16, 1917, was issued as a measure of retaliation for the German declaration of Feb. 1, 1917, of unrestricted submarine warfare in certain designated zones. The Order provided that a vessel encountered at sea on her way to or from a port in a neutral territory affording means of access to the enemy territory without calling at a port in British or Allied territory should be deemed to be carrying goods with an enemy destination, or of enemy origin and should be liable to capture and condemnation. The Leonora, 3 B. & C.P.C. 181, 385 [1919] A.C. 974, was a Dutch vessel, with coal laden at Rotterdam for Stockholm. The coal was produced in Belgian collieries under the control of the German Government and sold by it to a Swedish company. In condemning the ship and cargo,
Evans P. held that the Order did not entail unreasonable incon venience upon neutrals, having regard to all the circumstances. Upon appeal Lord Sumner gave the following opinion: "There are certain rights, which a belligerent enjoys by the law of nations in virtue of belligerency, which may be enforced even against neutral subjects and to the prejudice of their perfect freedom of action, and this because without those rights maritime war would be frustrated and the appeal to the arbitrament of war would be made of none effect." This and the previous case of The Stigstad, 2 B. & C.P.C. '79 3 ib., 347 A.C. 279, decided that retaliation is a belligerent right and that retaliatory measures may be enforced against neutrals. If, said Sir Erle Richards, retaliation be a legal right, neutrals can have no cause of complaint.