sands of tins.

The confiscation formed the subject of a complaint made by Chicago
beef packers to the State Department on October 6, 1915. The British
Court condemned the cargoes on the grounds: (1) that the goods being
in excess of the normal consumption of Denmark, raised a presumption
that they were destined for, i. e., eventually would find their way
into Germany. (2) That, owing to the highly organized state of
Germany, in a military sense, there was practically no distinction
between the civilian and military population of that country and
therefore there was a presumption that the goods, or a very large
proportion of them, would necessarily be used by the military forces
of the German Empire. (3) That the burden of proving that such goods
were not destined for, i. e., would not eventually get into the hands
of the German forces, must be accepted and sustained by the American
shippers.

The Chicago beef firms besought the Government to register an
immediate protest against the decision of the prize court and demand
from the British Government adequate damages for losses arising from
the seizure, detention and confiscation of the shipments of meat
products. They complained that the judgment and the grounds on which
it was based were contrary to the established principles of
international law, and subversive of the rights of neutrals. The
judgment, they said, was unsupported by fact, and was based on
inferences and presumptions. Direct evidence on behalf of the American
firms interested, to the effect that none of the seized shipments had
been sold, consigned or destined to the armed forces or to the
governments of any enemy of Great Britain, was uncontradicted and
disregarded and the seizures were upheld in the face of an admission
that no precedent of the English courts existed justifying the
condemnation of goods on their way to a neutral port.

An uncompromising defense of the prize court's decision came to the
State Department from the British Government a few days later. Most of
the seizures, it said, were not made under the Order in Council of
March 11, 1915, the validity of which and of similar orders was
disputed by the United States Government. The larger part of the
cargoes were seized long before March, 1915. The ground for the
seizures was that the cargoes were conditional contraband destined
from the first by the Chicago beef packers, largely for the use of the
armies, navies and Government depart