On the ground that hostilities between nations" suspend intercourse and deprive citizens of the hostile nations of rights of an international character previously enjoyed," it was advised that so long as a state of war existed between the United States and Spain, Spanish subjects would have "no right to the privileges of copyright conferred upoL Spanish citizens by proclamation prior to the declaration of war:" but that, when a treaty of peace should have been concluded, it would. if the treaty was silent on the subject, "be competent for the United States, through its executive officers, to resume the exercise of such rights and privileges as previously existed and have not been definitely declared terminated." and would be " entirely proper for the Librarian of Congress to admit Spanish subjects after the conclusion and ratification of the treaty to the same copyright privileges that they enjoyed prior to the declaration of war.”

Moore's Digest, vol. VII, pp. 243, 244; Griggs, At. Gen., Dec. 2. 1895. 22 Op. 268.

All unauthorized or secret communication with the enemy is considered treasonable by the law of war.

Foreign residents in an invaded or occupied territory, or foreign visitors in the same, can claim no immunity from this law. They may communicate with foreign parts, or with the inhabitants of the hostile country, so far as the military authority permits, but no further. Instant expulsion from the occupied territory would be the very least punishment for the infraction of this rule.

Lieber, art. 98.

It is incumbent upon the contracting parties of an armistice to stipulate what intercourse of persons or traffic between the inhabitants of the territories occupied by the hostile armies shall be allowed, if any.

If nothing is stipulated the intercourse remains suspended, as during actual hostilities.

Lieber, art. 141.

As the state of war involves the prohibition of all commercial relations between the belligerent nations you should stop French merchant vessels which, unless authorized by a license, try to violate this prohibition or which, with still greater guilt, seek to violate a blockade or engage in the transportation of troops, official dispatches or contraband of war for the account of the enemy or for an enemy destination.

Captains and all persons suspected of complicity should be arrested and sent to the nearest French judicial authority for prosecution if need be under Articles 77 et seq. of the Penal Code.

French Naval Instructions, 1912, secs. 24, 25.

Nonintercourse the rule.-All intercourse between the territories ccupied by belligerent armies, whether by traffic, by letter, by travel, r in any other way, ceases. This is the general rule, to be observed without special proclamation.

Exceptions to rule.-Exceptions to this rule, whether by safe-conuct, or permission to trade on a small or large scale, or by exchangng mails, or by travel from one territory into the other, can take place only according to agreement approved by the government or y the highest military authority. Contraventions of this rule are highly punishable.

U. S. Manual, p. 71.

After a declaration of war, all intercourse, and not merely trading, is forbidden; and an American citizen can not lawfully send a vessel to the enemy's country to bring away his property.

Moore's Digest, vol. VII, p. 237; The Rapid (1814), 8 Cranch, 155.

In war, all intercourse between the subjects and citizens of the belligerent countries is illegal, unless sanctioned by the authority of the government or in the exercise of the rights of humanity.

Moore's Digest, vol. VII, p. 237; The Julia (1814), 8 Cranch, 181.

The Government of the United States has power to permit limited commercial intercourse with an enemy in time of war, and to impose such conditions thereon as it sees fit; this power is incident to the power to declare war, and to carry it on to a successful termination. And it would seem that the President alone, who is constitutionally invested with the entire charge of hostile operations, may exercise this power; but whether so or not, there is no doubt that, with the concurrent authority of the Congress, he may exercise it according to his discretion.

Moore's Digest, vol. VII, p. 239; Hamilton v. Dillon, 21 Wall., 73.

A guardian's liability is not terminated by a state of war. It is suspended only until the return of peace, he being, during the war, an enemy of the country or state wherein his liability was created.

Moore's Digest, vol. VII, p. 240, Lamar r. Micou, 112 U. S., 452; s. c. 114 U. S., 218.

During the war the legislature of Virginia enacted that an act performed by the one of two or more joint fiduciaries who lived in Virginia, the others living in the Union States, should have the same effect as though all had joined. Held, that the enactment was illegal, and that a man who took a deed from one of the two trustees under such circumstances, the will having created a joint trust, took no title. Moore's Digest, vol. VII, pp. 240, 241; Lipse v. Spear, 4 Hughes, C. C. 535.

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A. moved from Georgia in the North in 1862, leaving money with an agent, who invested it in county bonds. The county pleaded, in defense to A's suit on the bonds, United States Revised Statutes, section 5301, prohibiting intercourse between the North and the South. Held, that A. could recover.

Moore's Digest, vol. VII, p. 241; Commrs. of Bartow County v. Newell, 64 Ga. 699.

New York Life Insurance Co. v. Davis, 95 U. S. 425.-Mr. Justice Bradley said: "That war suspends all commercial intercourse between the citizens of two belligerent countries or States, except so far as may be allowed by the sovereign authority, has been so often asserted and explained in this Court within the last fifteen years that any further discussion of that proposition would be out of place. As a consequence of this fundamental proposition it must follow that no active business can be maintained, either personally or by correspondence, or through an agent, by the citizens of one belligerent with the citizens of the other. The only exception to the rule recognized in the books, if we lay out of view contracts for ransoms and other matters of absolute necessity, is that of allowing the payment of debts to an agent of an alien enemy, where such agent resides in the same State with the debtor. But this indulgence is subject to restrictions. In the first place, it must not be done with the view of transmitting the funds to the principal during the continuance of the war, though if so transmitted without the debtor's connivance, he will not be responsible for it. Washington, J., in Conn. v. Penn. Pet. C. Ct. 496; Buchanan v. Curry, 19 Johns. (N. Y.) 141. In the next place, in order to the subsistence of the agency during the war, it must have the assent of the parties thereto-the principal and the agent. As war suspends all intercourse between them, preventing any instructions, supervision, or knowledge of what takes place, on the one part, and any report or application for advice on the other, this relation necessarily ceases on the breaking out of hostilities, even for the limited purpose before mentioned, unless continued by the mutual assent of the parties. It is not compulsory, nor can it be made so on either side to subserve the ends of third parties. If the agent continues to act as such, and his so acting is subsequently ratified by the principal, or if the principal's assent is evinced by any other circumstances, then third parties may safely pay money, for the use of the principal, into the agent's hands, but not otherwise. It is not enough that there was an agency prior to the war. It would be contrary to reason that a man, without his consent, should continue to be bound by the acts of one whose relations to him have undergone such a fundamental alteration as that produced by a war

etween the two countries to which they respectively belong, with hom he can have no correspondence, to whom he can communicate o instructions, and over whom he can exercise no control. It would e equally unreasonable that the agent should be compelled to connue in the service of one whom the law of nations declares to be is public enemy. If the agent has property of the principal in his ossession or control, good faith and fidelity to his trust will require im to keep it safely during the war, and to restore it faithfully at Is close."

Trotter, p. 242.

LIMITATION OF POWER TO CONTRACT.

Illegality of contracts.

It follows as a necessary consequence of the doctrine of the illegality of all intercourse or traffic, without express permission, that all contracts with the enemy, made during war, are utterly void. The insurance of enemy's property is an illegal contract, because it is a species of trade and intercourse with the enemy. The drawing of a bill of exchange by an alien enemy, on a subject of the adverse country, is an illegal and void contract, because it is a communication and contract. The purchase of bills on the enemy's country, or the remission and deposit of funds there, is a dangerous and illegal act, because it may be cherishing the resources and relieving the wants of the enemy. The remission of funds in money or bills to subjects of the enemy is unlawful. The inhibition reaches to every communication, direct or circuitous. All endeavors at trade with the enemy, by the intervention of third persons, or by partnerships, have equally failed, and no artifice has succeeded to legalize the trade, without the express permission of the government.

Every relaxation of the rule tends to corrupt the allegiance of the subject, and prevents the war from fulfilling its end. The only exception to this strict and rigorous rule of international jurisprudence is the case of the ransom bills, and they are contracts of necessity. founded on a state of war, and engendered by its violence.

Kent, vol. 1, pp. 80-82.

Exception-war contracts.

There is another exception to the general rule, in the case of a war contract arising out of a public necessity, created by the war itself. This is the case of a bill of exchange drawn upon England by a British prisoner in France, for his own subsistence, and endorsed to an alien enemy, and which the latter, on the return of peace, was allowed to enforce. Antoine v. Morshead, 6 Taunt. 237.

Kent, vol. 1, p. 82, note.

Ransom contracts.

Sometimes circumstances will not permit property captured at sea to be sent into port; and the captor, in such cases, may either destroy it, or permit the original owner to ransom it. It was formerly the general custom to redeem property from the hands of the enemy by ransom; and the contract is undoubtedly valid, when mu