ation in a prize court.[3]

[Footnote 3: Holland, Manual of Naval Prize Law (1888), p. 24.]

France in 1885 declared rice to be contraband when shipped from the
southern to the northern ports of China, with whom she was at war. But
in declaring that all cargoes so shipped were to be considered as
contraband the French Government made a distinction as to their intended
or probable destination and use. Great Britain protested at that time,
but as no cases came before French prize courts we have no way of
judging of the French declaration and its value as a precedent. But the
majority of the authorities upon the principles of international law
admit that foodstuffs which are destined for the use of the enemy's army
or navy may be declared contraband in character. The practice of the
United States, of Great Britain and of Japan has been to follow this
rule. Russia in 1904 declared rice and provisions in general to be
contraband. When Great Britain and the United States protested against
this decision the Russian Government altered its declaration so far as
to include foodstuffs as conditional contraband only. Germany has held
that articles which may serve at the same time in war and peace are
reputed contraband if their destination for the military or naval
operations of the enemy is shown by the circumstances.

All authorities seem to agree that contraband to be treated as such must
be captured in the course of direct transit to the belligerent, but the
difficulty nearly always arises as to what shall be considered direct
transit. One rule has been that the shipment is confiscable if bound for
a hostile port, another that it is only necessary to show that the
ultimate destination of the goods is hostile. The latter rule was
declared to apply in the American case of the _Springbok_, an English
merchantman conveying goods in 1863 from a neutral port to a neutral
port, but, it was alleged, with the evident intention that the goods
should reach by a later stage of the same voyage the belligerent forces
of the Southern Confederacy, then at war with the United States.[4] In
this case, however, the conclusive presumption was that the character of
the goods themselves left no doubt possible as to their ultimate
destination. The guilt of the vessel was not based upon the ground of
carrying contraband but upon a presumption that the blockade established
over the Southern States was to have been broken. Both the ship and its
cargo