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Show 209 208 that Profu'sfitll‘ Zorn, of Germany, has said of them that they alone treachery towards the enemy and this commonsense recognition of neutral rights was established for the first time in 1907 in would have made the conference of 1891) a remarkable success. 'l‘nrning next to the restriction of warfare and its evils to the narrowest possible limits, we find 1112 ‘ed progress in definingV the relations of bellieerents with neutrals, and in restricting: the scope W‘ml- if") 30" 1110111 of warfare between the belligerents themselves. lleretot'ore, the belligerent has bestrode the narrow earth like a Colossus. while petty neutrals walked under his huge. legs and peepcd about to find the best means of avoiding his displeas- ure. So dithcult and dangerous was the position of the neutral in the last century that statesmen very often acted on the policy that war with one or the other belligerent was preferable to neutrality. \\'e have changed all that in recent years, and espe- cially have the two Hague Conferences cribbed. cabined and con~ tined the belligerent in many stringent ways. The conferences first gave their high and definitive sanction to existing: international custom which admonished belligerent states to refrain from carrying on hostilities within neutral ter- ritory, to abstain from making on neutral territory direct prepara- tions for acts of hostility, to obey all reasonable regulations made by neutral states for the protection of their neutrality. and to make reparation to any state whose neutrality it may have violated They then enacted a considerable body of new legislation designed to emphasize and protect neutral fie/Its rather than neutral (in/11‘s So carefully did they protect neutral rights. and so strictly confine belligerent rights, that they may be said to have fairly ((lHtI/l-Zt‘d warfare t ‘ ' " ' finite and relas tively narrow channels and erected a system of (lykes as noteworthy as those which Holland has built against the fierce North Scaffor the protection of the great world of peaceful commerce and industry from the devastating floods of warfare which bellig- erents may let loos 1 against each other. Amongr these devices of restriction and protection may be mentioned the following: First, an unequivocal declaration 11f war. statingT its causes must be issued before hostilities are comA 111enced, and must be promptly announced to the neutral powers. It is indicative of the unbridled condition of belligerents before the llague Conferences that this primary restriction against modern international law. The most eminent juris-consults in the world, the members, namely. of the institute of International Law, had been wrestling unavailingly with the knotty problem of the rights of neutrals on land and sea for a generation. The Conference of 11107 solved a number of its phases, Upon the fundamental assertion of the inviolability of neutral territory, it forbade the conveyance across neutral territory of troops or convoys of munitions or provisions; it forbade the installation on neutral territory of te lee‘raphie or other apparatus designed to ser1e as a means of communitation with belligerent forces on land or sea: it fotbade the bringinrr 01 prizes into neutral ports unless under stress of bad weather (11 lack of coal or provisions, it forbade belli everents to increase in neutral any manner whatever their rnilitarv or naval strcneth on lands or 11' aters; it foibade an unlimited and too frequent renewal in neutral waters of belligerent food and fuel supplies; it forbade ports more than three belligerent warships to come into neutral hours, four twenty than more there remain to or time at any one rule; it unless the neutral power concerned had made a dilluent s 11 arslnp or an forbade belligerent warships to follow an (11101111 twent1four enemymerchant ship from a neutral port within hours after the latter ship s departtne. the above rights \ot onlydlid the Conference of 1007 assert residing citizens neutral of riohts some but Of neutral states, 11 it as we.ll (1111mm- within belligerent territory were assertcdl palticularly f1e< pient ing these rights international disputes are out in the con- pointed Germany, of Bieberstein as Baron 1011 tes , 11111arke1l, nitedlSta l the of fercnce: and as General Davis, in these 1la1's11t wide impmtance 1ast of 1s them of protection the should he1 listurbed as international commercial operrations which th1 111lesa1l1>pte11c11117 1ltl1>f 11111s1 \s little as possible by warfare a)».1i11st the eerning them. neutral resit lents ale 11111111tt1l111111 11nl' do business but 111‘ le 1‘esi1 they ry territo whose in belligerent state i11121des that territory: [he also against the belligerent which aliens are dimitnshed by the t residen of ips hardsh and athletics either btllieei‘ent for lend, 11 edl punish be not rule that they may 1111‘ tl1t to s 1 11tl1e1‘ b11h<1 111 ‘nl, 11111 good ting ing money or contribu |
