Page:Handbook of maritime rights.djvu/18

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4
MARITIME RIGHTS.

an end to paper blockades, and what I should call ocean blockades, that is, blockades ordered in Council and effected by- cruisers in the open sea. It consequently considerably limits the power of blockading at all times, and puts an end to it in the winter altogether in those seas (such as the Baltic and Black Seas), where no blockading squadron could maintain itself at that season.

This conventional limitation imposed by the Declaration of Paris is further increased by the improvements in the means of internal communication between nations, especially by the great extension of railways; for even where the whole coast of a particular country is effectually blockaded, the blockaded belligerent can transport his goods by land to the nearest neutral harbour (as the Russians did to Memel and Königsburg during the Crimean war), and there ship them on board neutral vessels, where they will be perfectly safe from