THE 
 
 BRITISH BLOCKADE. 
 
 BY 
 
 The Rt. Hon. A. J, BALFOUR. 
 
 LONDON i 
 DARLING & SON, LIMITED. 
 
 1915.
 
 THE 
 
 BRITISH BLOCKADE. 
 
 BY 
 
 The Rt, Hon. A, J, BALFOUR, ^\ 
 
 
 LONDON . 
 DARLING & SON, LIMITED. 
 
 1915
 
 o 
 
 THE BRITISH BLOCKADE. 
 
 By The Rt. Hon, A. J. BALFOUR. 
 
 Great interest had naturally been excited 
 in America over the threatened blockade of 
 Germany by the Allied Fleets ; and many 
 criticisms have been directed against the 
 Governments responsible for this policy. 
 This is most natural and legitimate. The 
 Order in Council affects both neutral 
 interests and international law. And the 
 United States of America — the greatest of 
 all neutrals and a leader of reform in inter- 
 national procedure — has a double interest 
 in the discussion. 
 
 Let me say, before I go further, that I 
 am in no sense personally responsible for 
 the policy which nas been adopted. I was 
 not consulted upon it ; and I view with the 
 greatest dislike any course which seems in 
 the smallest degree to violate the rules of 
 international warfare. But those who will 
 consent to consider the present case on its 
 
 (4741r— 8.) Wt. — G4531. 10,000. 5/15. D&S. Q.2. 
 
 869075
 
 [ 
 
 merits will. I think, be persuaded that the 
 policy of the Allies has a conclusive moral 
 justification. 
 
 Put shortly, the case is this. The 
 Germans declare that they will sink every 
 merchant ship which they believe to be 
 British, without regard to life, without 
 regard to the ownership of the cargo, with- 
 out any assurance that the vessel is not 
 neutral, and without even the pretence of 
 legal investigation. The British reply that 
 if these are to be the methods of warfare 
 employed by the enemy the Allies will 
 retaliate by enforcing a blockade designed 
 to prevent all foreign goods from entering 
 Germany and all German goods irom going 
 abroad. 
 
 Whether such a policy be, or be not, in 
 harmony with the accepted rules of inter- 
 national law is a point to which I shall 
 refer in a moment. But this, at least, may 
 be said in its favour. It cannot cause the 
 death of a single innocent civilian ; it can- 
 not destroy neutral lives and neutral 
 property without legal process ; it cannot 
 inflict injury upon neutral commerce com- 
 parable in character or extent to that
 
 which would be produced by a blockade 
 whose legality was beyond question. 
 
 But this contention, however true, is in 
 the eyes of some critics quite immaterial. 
 Law (they say) is law. Those who break 
 it are guilty of a wrong which does not 
 become a right because others have broken 
 it in a manner yet more deserving of 
 condemnation. The German practice may 
 be brutal to belligerents and reckless 
 towards neutrals : the British practice may 
 be careful of human life and tender towards 
 the interests of non - combatants. No 
 matter. Neither can find justification in 
 the accepted rules of war : both, therefore, 
 fall under the same condemnation. 
 
 But such a mode of reasoning applies the 
 most rigid technical standards in a case 
 where technical standards must be used 
 with caution. It appeals to the letter of 
 international law, but it ignores the spirit. 
 
 The Meaning of Discrimination. 
 
 What, in the eyes of the objector, is the 
 defect of the British Order in Council ? It 
 is that the blockade of which notice is there 
 
 4741 a 2
 
 given does not possess all the characteristics 
 of a blockade as defined in authoritative 
 text-books ; and that, in particular, it 
 violates the rule which forbids " discrimina- 
 tion " in favour of one neutral as against 
 another. 
 
 Now the object of this rule seems clear. 
 It is designed to prevent the blockading 
 Power using its privileges in order to 
 mete out different treatment to different 
 countries ; as for instance, by letting ships 
 of one nationality pass the blockading 
 cordon while it captures the ships of 
 another. Such a procedure is. on the face 
 of it, fair. It could have no object but to 
 assist the trade of one neutral as against 
 the trade of another, and arbitrarily to 
 redistribute the burden which war un- 
 happily inflicts on neutrals as well as on 
 belligerents. Now I submit that if there 
 be " discrimination " inflicted by the British 
 blockade, it is not discrimination of this 
 kind. It does no doubt leave the German 
 trade with Sweden and Norway in the same 
 position as the German trade with Holland 
 and Denmark, and in a different position 
 from the German trade with America or
 
 Africa. Bat the " discrimination " (if it is 
 to be so described) is not the result of a 
 deliberate policy, but of a geographical 
 accident. It is not due to any desire to 
 favour Scandinavian exporters as compared 
 with American exporters ; and in practice 
 it will have no such effect. They are not, 
 nor to any important extent can they be, 
 competing rivals in the German markets. 
 
 If any man be in doubt whether this 
 point be technical or substantial, let him 
 weigh the following considerations. The 
 rule against discrimination was devised (as 
 we have seen) in the interests of neutrals. 
 But which is best for neutrals — that three 
 should be a blockade conducted in the 
 ordinary way, or that there should be a 
 blockade of the new pattern described in the 
 Order in Council ? The latter may indeed 
 ignore the Baltic, and treat Scandinavia as 
 if, like Holland, it were divided from 
 Germany only by a land frontier. But 
 while the discrimination so produced can 
 inflict no substantial injury on any neutral, 
 the blockade to which it is due, unlike its 
 more orthodox predecessors, forbids the 
 capture either of neutral shipping or
 
 neutral u - o<><ls (other than contraband of 
 war) and so relieves the neutral importer of 
 his most serious anxieties. 
 
 International Law and Morality. 
 
 But after all it is the equity of the Allied 
 ease rather than the law which mainly 
 interests the thinking public in America 
 and elsewhere. The question which presses 
 mosl insistently for an answer is not 
 directly connected with legal definitions of 
 blockade, but with problems of international 
 morality. There are German thinkers of 
 distinction who deny that any such morality 
 exists ; but this happily is not a doctrine 
 which has any chance of acceptance among 
 English-speaking peoples. What then does 
 international morality require of one bel- 
 ligerent when the other belligerent tramples 
 international law in the dust ? 
 
 To some persons the answer to this 
 question seems easy. Why, they ask, 
 should the crime of one party modify the 
 policy of the other ? International rules 
 should be obeyed by both sides, but their
 
 g 
 
 repudiation by one side leaves the obliga- 
 tion of the other unimpaired. 
 
 Such an answer, however, confounds 
 international morality with international 
 law ; and though doubtless the two are 
 closely related they are not identical. The 
 obligation of the first is absolute, that of 
 the second is conditional ; and one of its 
 conditions is reciprocity. 
 
 If any feel inclined to quarrel with the 
 word " conditional " let them consider what 
 would happen if ordinary law were deprived 
 of all its sanctions, if the state lost all 
 power to enforce obligations, to protect the 
 innocent, or to punish the guilty. A com- 
 munity so situated might prosper so long 
 as there was a general agreement to obey 
 the laws and the agreement were main- 
 tained. But if the criminals broke it 
 whenever it suited them, ought the inno- 
 cent tamely to submit ? Ought they to 
 entrust their security to police who could 
 afford no protection, and to Courts which 
 could inflict no penalties ? Ought they, in 
 short, to behave precisely as they would if 
 social conditions were normal ? Few, I 
 believe, would think so.
 
 10 
 
 Now, the relation between States under 
 international law most closely resembles the 
 relation between individuals in such a 
 community as I have described. Inter- 
 national law has no sanctions ; no penalties 
 are inflicted on those who violate its rules ; 
 and if a State makes use of forbidden 
 weapons the neutrals, who blame its policy, 
 do nothing to protect its victims. Nor 
 is this surprising. In the present unor- 
 ganized condition of international relations 
 it could not well be otherwise. But let 
 them remember that impotence, like power, 
 lias duties as well as privileges ; and if 
 they cannot enforce the law on those who 
 violate both its spirit and its letter let 
 them not make haste to criticize belligerents 
 who may thereby be compelled in self- 
 defence to violate its letter, while care- 
 fully regarding its spirit. For otherwise 
 the injury to the future development of 
 international law may be serious indeed. 
 If the rules of warfare are to bind one 
 belligerent and leave the other free, they 
 cease to mitigate suffering ; they only load 
 the dice in favour of the unscrupulous ; 
 and those countries will most readily agree
 
 n 
 
 to changes in the law of nations who do 
 not mean to be bound by them. 
 
 Retaliation, but not in Kind. 
 
 But though, as I think, international law 
 can hardly be literally obeyed, unless both 
 sides are prepared to obey it, we must not 
 conclude that the absence of reciprocity 
 justifies the injured party in acting as if 
 international law and international morality 
 had thereby been abrogated. This would 
 be a monstrous doctrine. The Germans, 
 who began the war by tearing up a treaty, 
 continued it by inflicting the worst horrors 
 of war upon a people they had sworn to 
 defend. Could we therefore argue that 
 because the obligations of international 
 law are reciprocal, the Allies, when the 
 opportunity occurs, would be justified in 
 plundering private property, shooting inno- 
 cent civilians, outraging women, and 
 wantonly destroying works of art ? Could 
 they rightly do to Germany all that 
 Germany has done to Belgium ? 
 
 Assuredly not. I preach no such doc- 
 trine. These things were brutal and bar- 
 barous before the law of nations took
 
 12 
 
 formal shape ; they would remain brutal 
 and barbarous it' the law of nations fell 
 into desuetude. Germany would indeed 
 have no right to complain of retaliation in 
 kind ; but this would not justify us in 
 descending to her level. The policy which 
 I am defending has no resemblance to this. 
 It violates no deep ethical instincts ; it is 
 in harmony with the spirit of international 
 law ; it is more regardful of neutral 
 interests than the accepted rules of block- 
 ade ; nor is the injury which it is designed 
 to inflict on the enemy of a different 
 haracter from that inflicted by an ordinary 
 blockade. And, lastly, it is a reply to an 
 attack which is not only illegal, but im- 
 moral ; and if some reply be legitimate 
 and necessary, can a better one be devised ? 
 
 c 

 
 'i'HE Li^ttAKY 
 
 UNIVEIteiTY OF CALIFORNIA' 
 
 LOS AN#EUES