Japan arrested the ship at Yokohama and had her searched.  The suspected individuals, it was discovered, had escaped and taken the French mail-ship Sidney from Yokohama to Shanghai.  Nevertheless the search was continued by the Japanese authorities in the hope of finding contraband.  The British Government protested, and this protest is especially significant in view of the English contention in the cases of the German mail steamers.  The protest against the further detention and search of the Gaelic was made on the ground that the ship did not have a hostile destination, Sagasaki, a port in Japanese territory, being the only port of call between Yokohama and Hongkong.  It was shown by the Japanese that ships of the company to which the Gaelic belonged often called at Amoy, China, a belligerent port, but sufficient proof was not advanced to show that there was any intention to touch there on the voyage in question.[47]

[Footnote 47:  Takahashi, Int.  Law during the Chino-Japanese War, pp. xvii-xxvii.  Note on Continuous Voyages and Contraband of War by J. Westlake; also L.Q.  Rev., Vol. 15, p. 24.]

The British assertion that the neutral destination of the ship precluded the possibility of a search being made, and that it was immaterial whether anything on board had a hostile destination ulterior to that of the ship, appears rather surprising when it is seen to be almost the opposite of the position taken in the seizures of ships bound for Delagoa Bay in Portuguese territory.  Japan on the other hand maintained that the proceedings were entirely correct on the ground:  (1) of the probability that the Gaelic might call at Amoy; (2) that the doctrine of continuous voyages was applicable in connection with contraband persons or goods if they were destined for the Chinese Government even by way of Hongkong.  This it will be remembered was practically the view taken by Great Britain in the German seizures, though strenuously opposed in this incident.

Professor Westlake, commenting upon the case of the Gaelic, states the English view of the doctrine of continuous voyages as affecting:  (1) goods which are contraband of war and (2) persons who are contraband of war, or analogues of contraband.  Goods, he says, may be consigned to purchasers in a neutral port, or to agents who are to offer them for sale there, and in either case what further becomes of them will depend on the consignee purchasers or on the purchasers from the agents.  He contends that “such goods before arriving at the neutral port have only a neutral destination; on arriving there they are imported into the stock of the country, and if they ultimately find their way to a belligerent army or navy it will be in consequence of a new destination given them, and this notwithstanding that the neutral port may be a well-known market for the belligerent in question to seek supplies in, and that the goods may notoriously have been attracted to it by the existence of such a market."[48]