Austria has promised Italy, and Prussia has promised Austria to
respect all private property at sea,ships as well as goods,—in the approaching war, on condition of reciprocity. This is the natural corollary from the terms of the Congress of Paris, which bound all the Powers to respect enemies' goods in neutral bottoms, and neutral goods in enemies' bottoms. This conceded, to keep the right of confiscating enemies' ships is merely to oblige the bel- ligerent nation to trausfer its ships and its carrying trade for a time to some neutral fiig, an inconvenience which could not hasten the conclusion of a war by a day. If any of these powers can be said to be the gainers by this arrangement it is probably Italy, which has the largest mercantile marine, and therefore would suffer most from the necessity of transferring it or losing it. It is true she has also the largest navy, but in days of steam no navy- can protect a large mercantile marine against even one or two hostile cruisers.
Previous page
