Cumulative Topical Index
| DOI | 10.1177/000271621606300127 |
| Published date | 01 January 1916 |
| Date | 01 January 1916 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
155
NEUTRAL
RIGHTS
AND
OBLIGATIONS
OF
AMERICAN
REPUBLICS
BY
PAUL
FULLER,
New
York
City.
The
fortunate
isolation
of
our
hemisphere
from
the
turmoils
and
political
rivalries
of
the
eastern
world
has,
with
a
few
notable
exceptions,
hitherto
made
our
neutral
obligations
easy
and
our
neutral
rights
safe.
The
present
war,
with
its
new
methods,
its
novel
and
destruct-
ive
enginery,
its
wide
scope,
has
brought
forward
with
some
sharp-
ness
the
limits
of
our
obligations
and
the
need
for
defining
our
rights.
Materials
hitherto
innocent,
and
now
adapted
to
warfare,
to
the
manufacture
of
explosives
and
asphyxiating
gases,
to
the
con-
struction
of
aeroplanes,
have
made
unexpected
additions
to
contra-
band ;
the
scale
and
magnitude
of
warlike
operations
have
made
endurance
the
vital,
rather
than
an
incidental,
element
in
the
ulti-
mate
outcome,
and
have
brought
foodstuffs
into
the
forbidden
circle;
the
aircraft
threatens
the
humane
limitation
that
hitherto
kept
undefended
towns
and
their
non-combatant
population
safe
from
bombardment;
the
submarine,
with
the
floating
mine,
while
sub-
verting
the
character
of
blockade
and
demonstrating
the
inade-
quacy
of
its
prior
limitations,
makes
restricted
navigability
the
plea
to
justify
the
disregard
of
neutral
flags
and
of
non-combatants,
and
threatens
to
convert
the
restricted
right
of
search
and
seizure
into
a
right
of
destruction
without
warning.
The
predominance
of
sea
power
is
met
by
the
converted
cruiser
roaming
the
western
and
eastern
oceans
in
search
of
unarmed
and
peaceful
ships
of
commerce,
recalling
and
surpassing
the
palmiest
days
of
the
universally
dis-
carded
and
rejected
privateer.
The
time
is
opportune
to
define
and
to
emphasize
the
protection
due
to
neutral
interests,
and
it
behooves
all
neutrals
to
unite
in
every
effort
to
minimize
the
dangers
and
the
injuries
arising
from
these
changes
in
modern
warfare.
I
should be
sorry,
in
pleading
for
the
rights
of
neutrals,
to
show
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