ABSTRACT

The words appearing in the title of this chapter were not included in the f.c. & s. Clause until the 1943 version, and then only in a heavily qualified form. Even before the eye reaches the word “power” a distinct flavour is introduced of warlike actions (or, one might say, “warlike operation”) by or against a State or at the very least an organised body of persons. Matters were put on an firm and definitive basis by Bailhache J. in Atlantic Mutual Insurance v. The King. What seems to have clinched the matter in the defendant’s favour was the production of a circular to all the German naval attachés in Germany’s overseas embassies that they were to spare no effort to recruit “destruction agents”. The chief targets were to be munitions for the United Kingdom, France, Canada, the United States and Russia.