TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE Footnotes have been moved to the end of the book and renumbered. The following spelling errors were fixed: Location Was Changed to Pg 80 the The Pg 82 no on Ft 6 Common Commons Ft 8 Rgihts Rights The following punctuation errors were fixed: Location Change Pg 81 "course;" to "course," Pg 83 "transportation." to "transportation.’" Ft 3 Dot added at the end of footnote Ft 7 ’ added at the end of the footnote All other punctuation and spelling was retained. THE NEUTRAL MERCHANT IN RELATION TO THE LAW OF CONTRABAND OF WAR AND BLOCKADE UNDER THE ORDER IN COUNCIL OF 11TH MARCH 1915 BY SIR FRANCIS PIGGOTT LATE CHIEF JUSTICE OF HONG KONG _Reprinted, by permission, from_ THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PRESS, LTD. AT ST. PAUL’S HOUSE, WARWICK SQUARE, E.C. 1915 These articles appeared this year in the April, August, and September numbers of _The Nineteenth Century and After_, and I have to thank the Editor for allowing me to reprint them so soon after publication. They are a justification of the much-attacked Order in Council of 11th March, 1915. In reply to the German submarine menace the British Government resorted, by way of Reprisals, to a method of strangling the enemy’s commerce which, on the one hand, was wider in its scope than any list of contraband, and, on the other, was free from the ‘legal niceties’ which surround a declaration of blockade. Neutral merchants declared that it hit them hard, and the Government of the United States protested that it exceeded the limits which international law has placed to the right of a belligerent to interfere with neutral trade. The British Government replied justifying its action, and there, one would imagine, the matter should have rested for arbitration after the War. But the Government of the United States has continued its protests, has indeed just renewed them in most vigorous language, desiring to deflect us, in the interests of its commerce, from a course which must materially assist in crushing our enemy.