CONTRABAND OF WAR 513
The “free list” of the Declaration of London was likewise dis-
regarded; many articles on the list were declared to be contra-
band' and the Prize Courts frequently condemned such
goods.
Nevertheless, the Prize Courts appear to have never aban-
doned entirely the theoretical distinction. Many of the German
decisions in fact turned upon the question of whether particular
articles were absolute or conditional contraband according to
the Declaration of London.> Even the Prize Courts of Great
Britain, where the distinction had been most completely
abandoned by Orders in Council, did not in reaching their
conclusions always ignore the traditional difference between the
two classes of contraband. Thus in the case of the Louisiana
and Other Vessels,® in which the liability to capture of certain
cattle fodder stuffs was involved, we find Lord Parker saying
in 1918: “Fodder stuffs are not absolute contraband. They are
conditional contraband only—that is to say, they cannot be con-
demned as lawful prize unless destined for the enemy govern-
ment or the enemy’s naval or military forces.” And he added:
‘A belligerent state is entitled to seize the contraband goods in
transit on reasonable suspicion that, being in their nature absolute
contraband, they are destined for the enemy country, or being
in their nature conditional contraband, they are destined for the
enemy government or the enemy naval or military forces.” *
This was the traditional view and it was the principle embodied
found in the Special Supplement to the American Journal of International
Law, Vols. 9 (1915) and 10 (1916), pp. 9 ff. and 14 ff, respectively ; also in
the white book issued by the Department of State of the United States
entitled Diplomatic Correspondence with Belligerent Governments Relating
to Neutral Rights and Commerce, No. 1. pp. 5 ff., and No. 3, pp. 89 ff. In
explanation of its course, the British Foreign Office (Feby. 10, 1915), stated :
“The circumstances of the present war are so peculiar that His Majesty's
fovernment consider that for practical purposes the distinction between
the two classes of contraband has ceased to have any value. So large a pro-
portion of the inhabitants of the enemy country are taking part, directly or
indirectly, in the war that no real distinction can now be drawn between the
armed forces and the civilian population. Similarly, the enemy government
has taken control, by a series of decrees and orders, of practically all the
articles on the list of conditional contraband, so that they are now avail-
able for government use. So long as these exceptional conditions continue
our belligerent rights with respect to the two kinds of contraband are the
same and our treatment of them must be identical.” As to the breakdown
of the distinction between absolute and conditional contraband, see also
Richards, British Year Book of International Law, 1920-31, pp. 19 ff.
as to the details see my International Law and the World War, Vol. 11,
p. ;
* A long list of such decisions are cited in Verzijl, op. cit., pp. 739 ff.
'V Lloyd 248; III Br. & Col. Pr. Cas. 60.
‘ A similar view was expressed in the same year by the German Supreme
Prize Court in the case of the Pomona (II Entsch. 147).
