[Footnote 52:  Ibid., p. 26.]

[Footnote 53:  Ibid., p. 26.]

In regard to the doctrine of continuous voyages as applied to persons, Professor Westlake says, in speaking of the Gaelic, “When a person whose character would stamp him as contraband, or an analogue of contraband, is a passenger on board a ship bound for a neutral port, and having no ulterior destination, but intends on arriving there to proceed to a belligerent port, there is no closer connection between the two parts of his journey than that he should hold a through ticket to the belligerent port.”  It is pointed out that the distinction between a person when considered as contraband and goods or despatches is that “the person cannot be forwarded like a thing.”  Thus in the case of a person holding a through ticket, the ticket is merely a facility, but it must depend upon the person whether he will use it, and consequently, where the passenger is booked only to a neutral port, he “cannot constructively be considered as bound for a belligerent destination until he is actually bound for one."[54]

[Footnote 54:  Ibid., p. 29.  Italics our own.]

Upon Professor Westlake’s reasoning the whole contention of the English Government in arresting passengers upon German mail steamers bound for Delagoa Bay falls to the ground, for he continues:  “There must for such a destination be a determination of his own which during the first part of his journey inevitably remains contingent and which is therefore analogous to the new determination which may be given in the neutral port as to the employment of goods which have found a market there.”  Consequently he says:  “The doctrine of continuous voyages cannot be applied to the carriage of persons....  A neutral destination of the ship is conclusive in the case of passengers taken on board in the regular course."[55] Accordingly, Professor Westlake reaches the conclusion that the search of the Gaelic was unjustifiable under the right of belligerents against neutrals on the high seas.[56]

[Footnote 55:  L.Q.R, p. 32.]

[Footnote 56:  He held, however, that the search was justifiable as an exercise of the police power of Japan within her own territorial waters.]

The application which Great Britain attempted to make of the doctrine of continuous voyages proved unsuccessful both with reference to contraband for neutral ports and the carrying of analogues of contraband by German mail steamers bound for Delagoa Bay.  In the end the British Government paid to the German East African Line owning the Bundesrath, Herzog and General, L20,000 sterling, together with an additional sum of L5,000 as compensation to the consignees.  For the detention of the ship Hans Wagner, a German sailing boat which had been arrested on February 6, 1900, the sum of L4,437 sterling was paid.  The allegation in this case was that of carrying contraband, but the ship was finally released without the cargo being examined, a fact which indicates that in this, the last of the German vessels to be seized, Great Britain realized the futility of attempting to interfere with commerce between neutral ports.