Its effect is to enable the Government to prohibit and punish, from abundant caution, many acts on the part of its subjects for which it would incur no international liability.

It does empower the Government to prevent the use of its territory as a base: e.g.by aid directly rendered thence to a belligerent fleet; but it, of course, gives no right of interference with the export or carriage of articles which may be treated as contraband.
3.

The powers conferred upon a Government by such legislation as section 150 of the Customs Consolidation Act; 1853, now reproduced in a later enactment, of forbidding at any time, by Order in Council, the export of articles useful in war.

The power thus given has no relation to international duty, and is mainly intended to be exercised, in the way of self-protection, when Great Britain is, or is likely to be, engaged in war.

The object of the enactment is to enable the Government to retain in the country articles of which we may ourselves be in need, or to prevent them from reaching the hands of our enemies.