prize court. The suggestion
was made that future difficulty might be avoided by an agreement upon a
parallel of latitude down to which all ships should be exempt from
search. And although it was not found possible to reach an exact
agreement upon this point, orders were issued by Great Britain that the
right of search should not in future be exercised at Aden or at any
place at an equal distance from the seat of war and that no mail
steamers should be arrested on suspicion alone. Only mail steamers of
subsidized lines were to be included, but in all cases of steamers
carrying the mails the right of search was to be exercised with all
possible consideration and only resorted to when the circumstances were
clearly such as to justify the gravest suspicion.[32]

[Footnote 32: Ibid., pp. 19-22.]

It is interesting to note in the positions taken by the German and
English Governments with regard to the theory of ultimate destination
and continuous voyages a wide divergence of opinion. The British
Government apparently based its contention upon the decision of the
United States Supreme Court in the case of the _Springbok_ in 1863,
namely, that a continuous voyage may be _presumed_ from an intended
ultimate hostile destination in the case of a _breach of blockade_, the
contraband character of the goods only tending to show the ultimate
hostile intention of the ship. But the English contention went further
than this and attempted to apply the doctrine to contraband goods
ultimately intended for the enemy or the enemy's country by way of a
neutral port which, however, was not and could not be blockaded. The
German Government contended on the other hand that this position was not
tenable and apparently repudiated the extension of the continuous voyage
doctrine as attempted by England.

In the end the immediate dispute was settled upon the following
principles: (1) The British Government admitted, in principle at any
rate, the obligation to make compensation for the loss incurred by the
owners of the ships which had been detained, and expressed a readiness
to arbitrate claims which could not be arranged by other methods. (2)
Instructions were issued that vessels should not be stopped and searched
at Aden or at any point equally or more distant from the seat of war.
(3) It was agreed provisionally, till another arrangement should be
reached, that German mail steamers should not be searched in future on
suspicion only. This agreeme