r in point of law or
upon principles of international equity. They are unable to admit that
a belligerent violates any fundamental principle of international law
by applying a blockade in such a way as to cut out the enemy's
commerce with foreign countries through neutral ports if the
circumstances render such an application of the principles of blockade
the only means of making it effective."

In this connection Sir Edward Grey recalled the position of the United
States in the Civil War, when it was under the necessity of declaring
a blockade of some 3,000 miles of coast line, a military operation for
which the number of vessels available was at first very small:

"It was vital to the cause of the United States in that great struggle
that they should be able to cut off the trade of the Southern States.
The Confederate armies were dependent on supplies from overseas, and
those supplies could not be obtained without exporting the cotton
wherewith to pay for them.

"To cut off this trade the United States could only rely upon a
blockade. The difficulties confronting the Federal Government were in
part due to the fact that neighboring neutral territory afforded
convenient centers from which contraband could be introduced into the
territory of their enemies and from which blockade running could be
facilitated.

"In order to meet this new difficulty the old principles relating to
contraband and blockade were developed, and the doctrine of continuous
voyage was applied and enforced, under which goods destined for the
enemy territory were intercepted before they reached the neutral ports
from which they were to be reexported. The difficulties which imposed
upon the United States the necessity of reshaping some of the old
rules are somewhat akin to those with which the Allies are now faced
in dealing with the trade of their enemy."

Though an innovation, the extension of the British blockade to a
surveillance of merchandise passing in and out of a neutral port
contiguous to Germany was not for that reason impermissible. Thus that
preceded the British contention, which, moreover, recognized the
essential thing to be observed in changes of law and usages of war
caused by new conditions was that such changes must "conform to the
spirit and principles of the essence of the rules of war." The phrase
was cited from the American protest by way of buttressing the argument
to show that the United States itself, as evident from the