CONTRABAND

From Agepedia

CONTRABAND, in commerce; all goods and wares exported from or imported into any country, against the laws of said country. There are, also, a number of articles termed contraband of war, which neutrals may be prevented, by one belligerent, from carrying to another. What is to be considered contraband of war depends upon existing treaties. These, however, have not settled, with much precision, the articles embraced under this term. Indeed, before the Consolato del Mare of the Italian mercantile states, the subjects of many powers were forbidden to furnish their enemies with arms. The rule was afterwards established, that a belligerent power might prevent neutrals from supplying its enemy with munitions of war; hence the name contraband {contra bannum) was introduced. Subsequently, the term contraband was extended so as to embrace articles out of which munitions of war were made. All other articles, however, even such as might be useful to the enemy, such as grain, wine, provisions, money, &c, were allowed to pass free, a few only being excepted, by particular treaties (as, for instance, in the compact between France and Spain, in 1604, in the treaty between England and Holland, in 1654, &c), until very lately, when the number of articles styled contraband of war has been prodigiously increased. Many belligerent powers, in the war which broke out near the end of the last century, gave a partial and arbitrary construction to the term; for instance, England and Russia, in 1794, who wished to prevent neutral powers from supplying France with corn; and the might of England enabled her to enforce her own construction, which made such articles, for example, as salted meat contraband, under the pretext that it could only be intended for the garrisons and ships' crews. " The catalogue of contrabands," says sir William Scott (now lord Stowell), "has varied very much; sometimes in such a manner as to make it difficult to assign the reason of the variations, owing to particular circumstances, the history of which has not accompanied the history of the decisions. The king is bound to watch over the safety of the state; he may, therefore, make new declarations of contraband, when articles come into use, as implements of war, which were before innocent. This is not the exercise of discretion over contraband. The law of nations prohibits contraband, and it is the usus bellici, which, shifting from time to time, make the law shift with them. The greatest difficulty seems to have occurred in the instance of provisions, which have not been held, universally, contraband, though Vattel admits that they become so on certain occasions, when there is an expectation of reducing the enemy by famine. In modern times, one of the principal criteria, adopted by the courts, for the decision of the question, whether any particular cargo of provisions be confiscable as contraband, is, to examine whether those provisions be in a rude or a manufactured state. Articles are treated with greater indulgence in their native condition than when they are wrought up for the convenience of the enemy's immediate consumption." Of late, the practice of treating provisions as contraband of war, when asserted at all, has been, undoubtedly, less strict; a proof that the belligerent was not entirely confident of his right to confiscate. The belligerent has exercised the right of preemption only a right of purchase with a reasonable compensation to the individual whose property has been diverted, by the act of the belligerent, from its original destination. Eveiy state determines for itself what articles shall be deemed contraband in the way of trade ; for the most part, on the principle that nothing shall be tm ported which the country itself produces in abundance, and nothing exported but that which exceeds its own consumption. (See Smuggling.)