Lord Sumner :-

This is the claimants' appeal from the condemnation, for trading with the enemy, of 1,020 tons of silver-lead ex steamship "Panariellos," as droits of Admiralty. They raise points little, if at all, relied upon below. This explains how it is that evidence, now much needed, was given below scantily or not at all, though often it was in the claimant's possession. The appellants now accept much that before was disputed, and raise issues before their Lordships which must be decided by inference from indefinite and imperfect materials. It may be that they suffer from the course so taken.

On the 11th August, 1914 the Greek steamer "Panariellos" sailed from Ergasteria for Belgium and the United Kingdom with a cargo of minerals belonging to the appellants, the Compagnie Francaise des Mines du Laurium. The cargo consisted of about 1,020 tons of lead, stowed in the bottom of the ship, and about 3,500 tons of calamine and 600 of speiss stowed above the lead. There were three bills of lading : one for the entire cargo, one for half of the lead, another for the other half. Each bill of lading expressed that the cargo, which it covered, was consigned to the appellants themselves. The lead was made deliverable at Newcastle; the bill of lading for the entire cargo made it deliverable at Antwerp and Newcastle, but the calamine, at any rate, was in fact to be discharged at Antwerp. The bills of lading incorporated a voyage charter, dated the 18th July, 1914, for Antwerp and Tyne below bridges. It gave a lien for freight and demurrage.

The loading of this cargo began on the 29th July, 1914 and finished on the 10th August. The appellants, whose siege social is in Paris with an office at Laurium, where they exploit mines, have not contested that at all material times they were aware of the outbreak of war between Great Britain and France and Germany. The appellants had long been in commercial relations with the firm of Beer Sondheimer and Co., of Frankfort-on-the-Main, who traded in metallic ores. Running contracts existed between them, under which Beer Sondheimer and Co. sent cargoes of galena from Tunis to Ergasteria, where the appellants treated them and re-shipped the resulting lead ore as arranged with their German customers. In form, the appellants bought the galena from Beer Sondheimer and Co. and sold to them the lead extracted from it. As these transactions regularly followed one another, there was a running account between the parties on which a balance was outstanding in favour of the appellants. In this way the shipment of lead ore in question came to be made. It is common ground in the present proceedings that the lead still belonged to the appellant company at all material times. At one time a claim was made on behalf of Beer Sondheimer and Co., as owners, but it was abandoned, and the ownership of the cargo need not be pursued further.

As soon as war broke out Beer Sondheimer and Co. set to work to get possession of the bills of lading. Communication being suspended between Frankfort and Paris, they telegraphed to the appellants office at Ergasteria on or before the 4th August to send the bills of lading direct to Beer Sondheimer and Co., of London, and asked that the appellants' Paris house might be directed to transmit these instructions to this London firm. The appellants forwarded these instructions, but at that time no bills of lading had been signed, and nothing further was done.

The London firm of Beer Sondheimer and Co. consisted of one person, a German named Emil Beer. Whether he had any other business than that of agent in London for Beer Sondheimer and Co., of Frankfort, does not appear. At any rate, his firm in London were sole agents for the Frankfort firm and, as he is said to be "a partner" in the Frankfort firm, presumably that firm had other members. The Frankfort and the London firms were distinct, but in intimate relations with one another. On the 21st August the London firm, then in charge of an Austri