CHAPTER XI
NATIONALITY OF GOODS CAPTURED AT SEA. ENEMY
CHARACTER
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS
Sec. 327. Questions Involved. The liability to capture
and confiscation of goods carried at sea like that of the ships
which carry them, depends upon their national character. Few
questions were the subject of more frequent prize adjudication
during the World War and probably none raised more perplexing
difficulties for the Prize Courts. Among the particular forms
which the general question assumed were: whether in given cases
cargoes found on enemy ships were or were not confiscable,
whether the owners of goods sunk with the ships on which they
were laden were entitled to indemnities, whether goods otherwise
innocent were liable to confiscation by reason of their being
“infected” by the presence of contraband, whether enemy goods
found on neutral ships and therefore protected by the Declara-
tion of Paris were nevertheless confiscable in virtue of the meas-
ures of reprisal adopted by certain belligerent governments,
whether goods found on non-enemy ships engaged in unneutral or
hostile service were liable to condemnation, ete. The judgments
of the Prize Courts, especially of Great Britain, in many of the
cases are elaborate and involved and it is not always easy to
follow them in the tortuous processes by which they endeavored
to unravel what often proved to be complicated and tangled
skeins.
Sec. 328. Rule of the Declaration of London. Article 58
of the Declaration of London enunciates the rule that “the
neutral or enemy character of goods found on board an enemy
vessel is determined by the neutral or enemy character of the
owner.” Unfortunately, the rule does not lay down any princi-
ple by which the enemy or neutral character of the owner is to
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