y German
mail steamers bound for Delagoa Bay. In the end the British Government
paid to the German East African Line owning the _Bundesrath, Herzog_ and
_General_, L20,000 sterling, together with an additional sum of L5,000
as compensation to the consignees. For the detention of the ship _Hans
Wagner_, a German sailing boat which had been arrested on February 6,
1900, the sum of L4,437 sterling was paid. The allegation in this case
was that of carrying contraband, but the ship was finally released
without the cargo being examined, a fact which indicates that in this,
the last of the German vessels to be seized, Great Britain realized the
futility of attempting to interfere with commerce between neutral ports.

The recommendations for the adjustment of the difficulty in the several
cases were made by a commission of five members, two of whom were
Germans, and the awards gave general satisfaction in Germany. The East
African Line congratulated Count Von Buelow upon the energetic manner in
which he had handled the incidents. German commercial interests
considered that they might count upon the effective support of the
Government, and that the result was a complete justification of the
attitude which Germany had assumed with regard to the conflicting
interests of belligerents and neutrals.

CHAPTER IV.

TRADING WITH THE ENEMY.

Almost contemporaneously with the German-English controversy with
reference to the restrictions which might legitimately be put upon
German mail steamers Great Britain and the United States became involved
in a lengthy correspondence.

Various articles of the general nature of foodstuffs were seized upon
ships plying between New York and Delagoa Bay. It developed later that
the seizures were justified by England not upon the ground of the guilt
of carrying contraband _per se_, but because an English municipal
regulation was alleged to have been violated by English subjects in that
they had traded with the enemy. But the fact was incontrovertible that
the port of destination as well as that of departure was neutral. The
burden of proof under the circumstances rested upon the captor to show
that goods innocent in themselves were really intended for the enemy.
Consequently the line of justification which was set up involved not
merely an extension of the doctrine of continuous voyages, but an
application of this much mooted theory that would show an ultimate
intention to trade with the ene