rent powers should
be liable to visit and search, but again with the necessary caution that
the right should not be exercised in waters too remote from the seat of
war, and that additional consideration be conceded to mail steamers.[42]

[Footnote 42: Sessional Papers, Africa, No. I (1900), C. 33, p. 24.
Speech in Reichstag, Jan. 19, 1900.]

There would seem to be no necessary opposition between the German
position in 1900 and that taken by the Supreme Court of the United
States in 1863 with reference to the ships _Springbok_ and _Peterhof_.
In the latter case the cargo of the ship was condemned on the ground
that the goods, not necessarily contraband in character, were being
carried into the neutral Mexican port of Matamoras. It was believed,
however, that the goods were not intended to be sold there as a matter
of trade, but were destined for the use of the forces of the Southern
Confederacy across the Rio Grande River. To these belligerent forces it
was presumed the goods were to be conveyed as the final stage of their
voyage, but the decision of the court was distinctly upon the guilt of a
breach of blockade.[43] The character of the goods did not give just
ground for seizure provided they were intended in good faith for a
neutral market, but the character of the goods showed that they were not
so intended, and the simulated papers of the ship substantiated this
suspicion. But it is to be repeated, condemnation was declared upon the
ground of an intended breach of an established blockade as the final
stage of the voyage. Had there been no blockade of the Southern States
these decisions could not have been upheld. No contraband of war was
possible between the neutral ports in the course of _bona fide_ neutral
trade, but the character of the goods and the dishonest character of the
ships made possible the conclusive presumption that the goods were
ultimately intended for the blockaded enemy.

[Footnote 43: Sessional Papers, Miscl., No. I (1900), C. 34, p. 60.]

In the seizure of the German ships, on the other hand, the British
Government was not able to show that the ships were really carrying
contraband or that there was any irregularity in their papers. The
protest of the German Government and its later announcement of certain
rules which should govern such cases merely cautioned Great Britain
against an undue exercise of the recognized right of visit and search.
The attempt was not made to lay down a new system