At the same time, in the event of hostilities, shipping sailing under the neutral no-man's flag and subject to no national allegiance would enjoy such immunities as still inure to neutral shipping.

It is true, neutrality has not carried many immunities lately.
Cumulatively effective usage and the exigencies of a large, varied, shifting and extensive maritime trade have in the course of time brought merchant shipping to something approaching a neutral footing.
For most, one might venture to say for virtually all, routine purposes of business and legal liability the merchant shipping comes under the jurisdiction of the local courts, without reservation.

It is true, there still are formalities and reservations which enable questions arising out of incidents in the shipping trade to become subject of international conference and adjustment, but they are after all not such as would warrant the erection of national apparatus to take care of them in case they were not already covered by usage to that effect.

The visible drift of usage toward neutralisation in merchant shipping, in maritime trade, and in international commercial transactions, together with the similarly visible feasibility of a closer approach to unreserved neutralisation of this whole range of traffic, suggests that much the same line of considerations should apply as regards the personal and pecuniary rights of citizens traveling or residing abroad.
The extreme,--or, as seen from the present point of view, the ultimate--term in the relinquishment of national pretensions along this line would of course be the neutralisation of citizenship.
This is not so sweeping a move as a patriotically-minded person might imagine on the first alarm, so far as touches the practical status of the ordinary citizen in his ordinary relations, and particularly among the English-speaking peoples.

As an illustrative instance, citizenship has sat somewhat lightly on the denizens of the American republic, and with no evident damage to the community at large or to the inhabitants in detail.