foodstuffs destined for the civil population should never be interfered
with, this charge being founded on the submission to a prize court of
the cargo of the Wilhelmina. The special considerations affecting this
cargo have already been presented in a memorandum to the United States
Government, and I need not repeat them here.

"Inasmuch as the blockade of all foodstuffs is an admitted consequence
of blockade, it is obvious that there can be no universal rule based on
considerations of morality and humanity which is contrary to this
practice. The right to stop foodstuffs destined for the civil population
must therefore in any case be admitted if an effective 'cordon'
controlling intercourse with the enemy is drawn, announced, and
maintained. Moreover, independently of rights arising from belligerent
action in the nature of blockade, some other nations, differing from the
opinion of the Governments of the United States and Great Britain, have
held that to stop the food of the civil population is a natural and
legitimate method of bringing pressure to bear on an enemy country as it
is upon the defense of a besieged town. It is also upheld on the
authority of both Prince Bismarck and Count Caprivi, and therefore
presumably is not repugnant to German morality.

"The following are the quotations from Prince Bismarck and Count Caprivi
on this point. Prince Bismarck in answering, in 1885, an application
from the Kiel Chamber of Commerce for a statement of the view of the
German Government on the question of the right to declare as contraband
foodstuffs that were not intended for military forces said: 'I reply to
the Chamber of Commerce that any disadvantage our commercial and
carrying interests may suffer by the treatment of rice as contraband of
war does not justify our opposing a measure which it has been thought
fit to take in carrying on a foreign war. Every war is a calamity which