that the freight shall be a charge on the cargo, if the proceeds of the cargo are not sufficient to pay the freight, the captors are not responsible for the deficiency (a). Where the cargo is adjudged lawful prize, but the ship is ordered to be restored and the freight is decreed a charge on the cargo,if, owing to the neglect or fault of captors or their agents, the cargo be lost, captors are liable to the master for the freight (6). Where the freight of the neutral and the expenses of the captors are both decreed to be a charge on the cargo, and the proceeds are insufficient to discharge both, priority of payment of the freight is, in ordinary cases, allowed by the Court, as a lien that takes place of all others (c). Prize Courts, p. 94.)

(Story on

But the freight to be paid must be reasonable in amount. If it be excessive, notwithstanding that the contract might in existing circumstances have been fair as between shipper and carrier, the captor is liable to pay only such amount as would ordinarily be due for carrying similar goods (d). For though, owing to the state of war and the attendant risks of carriage, an extravagant rate of freight might well be charged to the shipper, it would be unreasonable to require the captor to pay such an exceptional sum, due to the carrier as being in a great measure in the nature of an encouragement to him to use his best efforts to defeat the captor's vigilance.

Where the goods have once been unlivered by order of the Court, the whole freight for the voyage is due, and the owner of the goods, even in case of restitution, cannot require the ship to reload them and carry them to the original port of destination, for by the separation the ship is exonerated (e);

(a) The Haabet, 4 Rob. 302.
(b) The Der Mohr, ibid. 315.
(c) The Bremen Flugge, ibid. 90.

(d) The Twilling Riget, 5 Rob. 82.

(e) The Hoffnung, 6 Rob. 231; The Prosper, Edw. 72.

but it would be otherwise if there had been no unlivery (ƒ). (Story on Prize Courts, p. 92.)

Where ship and cargo are both restored, without any authoritative unlivery of the cargo having taken place, the original contract of affreightment is not dissolved; and the parties to that contract are again at large, after a temporary inability, to fulfil their obligations and enforce their rights (g). (Vide Effect of War on Contract, p. 412, infra.)

To entitle the neutral carrier to freight at the hand of the captor, he must bring the goods to such port as the latter may select. And if on arrival at the port so selected the captor should find it desirable to carry the cargo to some other safe port, the neutral master, it is stated, is bound to convey it thither. For this fresh undertaking, however, a special contract must be made between captor and carrier. If the latter refuse to proceed as required, it is, according to the Consolato del Mare (§ 5), the captor's right to sink the vessel, though without causing loss of life. But this extreme measure must be resorted to only when the whole, or at least the greater part, of the cargo is enemy's property. The same ancient code contains other provisions of interest in this connexion.

Insurance.

So far as freight stands in a position differing, in respect of marine insurance, from that of other insurable interests liable to capture, such exceptional position has already been commented upon, pp. 46 and 70, supra. Freight is, of course, an indifferent subject for insurance against risks of capture, seeing that abandonment of the ship to the underwriters on the body of the vessel carries with it the right to freight being earned, thereby

(f) The Copenhagen, 1 Rob. 289.

(g) Maclachlan's Laws of Merchant Shipping, p. 418.

defeating any expectation of salvage to which the underwriters on freight might otherwise be entitled,

The above subject of payment of freight by belligerent captors completes the consideration of Belligerent Obligations scheduled on p. 311. Having thus gone over the obligations as well as the rights of belligerents, we will turn in the next place to consider the position occupied by neutrals during the prevalence of hostilities.

VIII.

NEUTRAL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS, TREATED UNDER THE FOLLOWING HEADS, VIZ.:

The scheme of neutral rights has as a broad foundation the general principle that the existence of war between certain states shall not be allowed to operate in restriction of the ordinary trade and commercial relations of nations standing

aloof from the hostilities (). On the other hand, peaceful nations, in order that their right to be regarded as neutrals may be respected, are under the obligation to preserve a strict impartiality towards the belligerents, and to studiously refrain from any action calculated to promote, directly or indirectly, the warlike purposes of the one to the detriment of the other. This does not import, for example, that a neutral power must refuse to allow a belligerent to purchase warlike stores within the neutral jurisdiction; but that a permission to effect such purchases shall be impartially granted or denied to both belligerents. It may, it is true, very likely be the case that such a permission may be valueless to one of the belligerents and all-important to the other; but this is a matter in which the neutral state is not concerned. The neutral must show impartiality, and if this impartiality should benefit the one belligerent and prejudice the other, this is not the affair of the neutral.

Whilst admitting the general right of neutrals to maintain friendly commercial relations with belligerents, the modern tendency would seem to be to include amongst the negative obligations of neutrals the abstention from equivocal traffic in which, in bygone days, their right to engage was not questioned. And there is, moreover, a growing disposition to consider it the obligation of neutral governments to restrain their subjects from engaging in so-called illicit transactions; transactions for which, as it was formerly understood, the sole penalty was the seizure and confiscation, by an aggrieved belligerent, of the articles to which, by the law of nations, exception could properly be taken. Notwithstanding that the law of nations is on this point so well established as to be practically beyond dispute, there is a sort of evolution now in progress which seems to have created an

(h) Ex parte Chavasse, In re Grazebrook, 34 L. J. N. S. Bk. p. 17.