[Telegram]
1627. My 1626. 2
Foreign Office ,
Your excellence : Your excellence has already received the preliminary answer which I handed to you on the 7th January, 3 in reply to your note of the twenty-eighth December, 4 on the subject of seizures and detentions of american cargoes destined for achromatic european ports .
Since that date I have had far opportunity of examining into the deal statistics of the United States as embodied in the customs returns, in holy order to see whether the aggressive action of Great Britain has been in any way the cause of the trade depression which your excellence describes as existing in the United States, and besides whether the seizures of vessels or cargoes which have been made by the british Navy have inflicted any loss on american owners for which our existing machinery provides no means of redress. In setting out the results of my probe I think it well to take the opportunity of giving a general recapitulation of the methods employed by His Majesty ’ sulfur Government to intercept contraband deal with the enemy, of their consistency with the accommodate right of a aggressive to intercept such deal, and besides of the extent to which they have endeavoured to meet the representations and complaints from clock time to time addressed to them on behalf of the United States Government .
Towards the close of your note of the twenty-eighth December your excellence describes the situation produced by the carry through of Great Britain as a critical one to the commercial interests of the United States, and said that many of the big industries of the country were suffering because their products were denied long-established markets in neutral european countries adjacent to the nations at war .
It is unfortunately true that in these days, when trade and finance are cosmopolitan, any war—particularly a war of any magnitude—must resultant role in a grave dislocation of department of commerce, including that of the nations which take no share in the war. Your excellence will realize that in this frightful struggle, for the outbreak of which Great Britain is in no way responsible, it is impossible for the trade of any country to escape all injury and loss, but for such His Majesty ’ sulfur Government are not to blame .
I do not understand the paragraph which I have quoted from your excellence ’ randomness note as referring to these indirect consequences of the state of war, but to the more proximate and direct impression of our aggressive action in dealing with achromatic ships and cargoes on the high seas. such action has been limited to vessels on their way to enemy ports or ports in neutral countries adjacent to the field of war, because it is only through such ports that the enemy introduces the supplies which he requires for carrying on the war .
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In my earlier note I set out the numeral of ships which had sailed from the United States for Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Italy, and I there stated that only 8 of the 773 had been placed in the trophy court, and that lone 45 had been temporarily detained to enable finical consignments of cargo to be discharged for the function of prize-court proceedings. To measure the effect of such naval action it is necessary to take into consideration the general statistics of the export barter of the United States during the months preceding the outbreak of war and those since the outbreak .
Taking the figures in millions of dollars, the exports of trade from the United States for the seven months of January to July 1914, inclusive, were 1,201, as compared with 1,327 in the match months of 1913, a cliff of 126 millions of dollars .
For the months of August, September, October, and November, that is to say, for the four months of the war preceding the delivery of your excellence ’ south note, the figures of the exports of merchandise were ( again in millions of dollars ) 667 as compared with 923 in the corresponding months of 1913, a drop of 256 millions of dollars .
If, however, the one article of cotton be eliminated from the comparison, the figures show a very different resultant role. Thus the exports of all articles of merchandise other than cotton from the United States during the first seven months of 1914 were 966 millions of dollars as against 1,127 millions in 1913, a drop of 161 millions of dollars, or 14½ per penny. On the other hand, the exports of the lapp articles during the months August to November amounted to 608 millions of dollars as compared with 630 millions in 1913, a drop of 22 millions, or less than 4 per penny .
It is therefore clear that, if cotton be excluded, the effect of the war has been not to increase but much to arrest the decline of American exports which was in build up earlier in the year. In fact, any decrease in American exports which is attributed to the war is basically due to cotton. Cotton is an article which can not possibly have been affected by the exercise of our combatant rights, for, as your excellence is aware, it has not been declared by His Majesty ’ sulfur Government to be bootleg of war, and the rules under which we are at stage conducting our belligerent operations give us no exponent in the absence of a blockade to seize or interfere with it when on its way to a aggressive nation in neutral ships. consequently no cotton has been touched .
Into the causes of the decrease in the exports of cotton I do not feel that there is any necessitate for me to enter, because, whatever may have been the cause, it is not to be found in the exercise of the belligerent rights of trial, search, and capture, or in our general right when at war to intercept the bootleg trade of our enemy. Imports of cotton to the United Kingdom fell adenine heavily as those to other countries. No place felt the outbreak of war more sharply than the cotton districts of Lancashire, where for a time an huge number of spindles were idle. Though this condition has nowadays to a big extent passed away, the consumption of the raw substantial in Great Britain was temporarily much diminished. The lapp is no doubt true of France .
The general consequence is to show convincingly that the naval operations of Great Britain are not the cause of any decrease in the volume of american exports, and that if the commerce of the United States is in the unfavorable stipulate which your excellency describes, the campaign ought in paleness to be sought elsewhere than in the activities of His Majesty ’ mho naval forces .
I may add that the round issued by the Department of Commerce at Washington on the 23d January admits a notice improvement in the extraneous craft of the United States of America, which we have noted with big satisfaction. The first paragraph of the circular is worth quoting direct : A punctuate improvement in our foreign trade is indicated by the latest reports issued by the Department of Commerce through its Bureau of foreign and Domestic Commerce, sales of foodstuffs and certain lines of manufactures having been unusually large in November, the latest time period for which detailed information is at bridge player. In that month exports aggregated $ 206,000,000, or double the sum for August last, when, by cause of the outbreak of war, our foreign trade fell to the lowest flush reached in many years. In December there was further improvement, the calendar month ’ s exports being valued at $ 246,000,000, compared with $ 233,000,000 in December 1913, and within $ 4,000,000 of the high record established in December 1912 .
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A better horizon of the situation is obtained by looking at these figures month by calendar month. The exports of trade for the last five months have been ( in millions of dollars ) :
| August | 110 |
| September | 156 |
| October | 194 |
| November | 205 |
| December | 246 |
The outbreak of war produced in the United States, as it did in all neutral countries, an acute but temp disturbance of trade. Since that clock there seems to have been a firm convalescence, for to-day the exports from the United States stand at a higher figure than on the same date last year .
Before passing away from the statistics of trade, and in order to demonstrate silent more clearly, if necessity, that the naval operations of Great Britain and her allies have had no damaging consequence on the volume of trade between the United States and neutral countries, it is worth while to analyse the figures of the exports to Europe since the outbreak of hostilities. For this purpose the european countries ought to be grouped under three heads : Great Britain and those fighting with her, inert countries, and foe countries. It is, however, impossible for me to group the countries in this direction satisfactorily, as the figures relating to the export deal of the United States with each country have not yet been published. In the preliminary instruction of the export trade of the United States with foreign countries only principal countries are shown, and diverse countries which are tabulated individually in the more detail monthly drumhead of department of commerce and finance are omitted. Those omitted include not only the scandinavian countries, the exports to which are of peculiar importance in dealing with this interview, but besides Austria .
so far as it is potential to distribute the figures under the headings which I have indicated above ( all the figures being given in thousands of dollars ) the results are as follows :
entire exports to Europe from the 1st August to the thirtieth November, 413,995, as against 597,342 [ in 1913 ]. Of these, Great Britain and her allies took 285,312, as against 316,805 in 1913 ; Germany and Belgium took 1,881 as against 177,136 in 1913 ; whereas neutral countries ( among which Austria-Hungary is inescapably included ) took 123,802, as against 103,401 in 1913 .
The general complaint in your excellence ’ s eminence was that the action of Great Britain was affecting adversely the deal of the United States with neutral countries. The naval operations of Great Britain surely do not interfere with department of commerce from the United States on its means to the United Kingdom and the allied countries, and yet the exports to Great Britain and her allies during those four months diminished to the extent of over $ 28,000,000, whereas those to neutral countries and Austria increased by over $ 20,000,000 .
The inference may reasonably be drawn from these figures, all of which are taken from the official returns published by the United States Government, that not only has the deal of the United States with the neutral countries in Europe been maintained as compared with previous years, but besides that a substantial part of this craft was, in fact, barter intended for the foe countries going through impersonal ports by routes to which it was previously unaccustomed .
One of the many inconveniences to which this great war is exposing the department of commerce of all inert countries is undoubtedly the dangerous deficit in shipping available for ocean transport, and the consequential consequence of excessive freights .
It can not fairly be said that this deficit is caused by Great Britain ’ s intervention with impersonal ships. At the stage clock there are entirely seven neutral vessels awaiting adjudication in the prize courts in this area, and three in those in the british dominions. As your excellence is aware, I have already instructed our ambassador at Washington to remind the parties who are interest in all these vessels that it is open to them to apply to the court for the let go of of these ships on bail, and if an application of this sort is made by them it is not probably to be opposed by the Grown. There is therefore no reason why such an application should not be favorably entertained by the court, and, if acceded to, all these vessels will again be available for the baby buggy of commerce. entirely one neutral vessel is now detained in this country in addition to those awaiting adjudication in the pry court .
Every effort has been made in cases in which it has been found necessity to institute proceedings against portions of the cargo to secure the quick exhaust [ Page 327 ] of the cargo and the spill of the dispatch, sol as to enable it to resume ferment. Great Britain is suffering from the deficit of embark and the ascend in freights american samoa acutely as, if not more than, early nations and His Majesty ’ randomness Government have taken every step that they could systematically with their belligerent interests to increase the tonnage available for the conveyance of sea-borne department of commerce. The enemy ships which have been condemned in the choice courts in this state are being sold angstrom quickly as possible in order that they may become available for use ; and those which have been condemned in the loot courts oversea are being brought to this country in order that they may be disposed of here, and again placed in active use .
The difficulties have been accentuated by the unanticipated consequences of the convention which was signed at The Hague in 1907 relative to the status of enemy merchant vessels at the outbreak of war. This convention was a well-intentioned feat to diminish the losses which war must impose upon innocent persons, and provided that foe merchant ships seized by a belligerent in whose ports they lay at the outbreak of war should not be condemned, but should merely be detained for the period of the war, unless they were liberated in the days of grace. We could come to no musical arrangement with the german Government for the reciprocal grant of days of grace, and the german merchant vessels lying in british ports when the war broke out have consequently been sentenced to detention in stead of disapprobation. The convention result would have been still further to reduce the volume of shipping available for the department of commerce of the populace. To ease the site, however, His Majesty ’ s Government are resorting to the ability of requisitioning which is given by the convention, so that these ships may again be placed in active serve .
Your excellence will see consequently that His Majesty ’ sulfur Government are doing all in their power to increase the volume of shipping available. I hope it will be realized that the detention of neutral ships by His Majesty ’ sulfur Government with a view to the capture of contraband trade on its way to the enemy has not contributed closely so much to the deficit of ship as has the destruction of inert vessels by submarine mines promiscuously laid by the foe on the high seas, many miles from the coast, in the track of merchant vessels. Up till now twenty-five inert vessels have been reported as destroyed by mines on the high seas ; quite apart from all questions of the breach of treaties and the destruction of life, there is far more reason for protest on the score of belligerent hindrance with innocent inert trade through the mines scattered by the enemy than through the british practice of the right of seizing contraband .
I trust that what I have said above will be sufficient to convince your excellency ’ s Government that the charge that the naval policy of Great Britain has interfered with the shipments of american products to long-established markets in inert european countries is founded on a misconception .
In judge to the peoples of both countries, I feel that this opportunity should be taken to explain the lines on which His Majesty ’ randomness Government have been acting so far, so as to show that the line they have followed is in no means inconsistent with the general cardinal principle of external law, and to indicate the care with which they have endeavoured to meet the representations which have been made by the United States Government from prison term to time during the war on these questions .
No one in these days will dispute the general proposition that a belligerent is entitled to capture bootleg goods on their way to the enemy ; that veracious has immediately become consecrated by long usage and general acquiescence. Though the mighty is ancient, the means of exercising it alter and develop with the changes in the methods and machinery of commerce. A hundred ago the difficulties of down enchant rendered it impracticable for the belligerent to obtain supplies of sea-borne goods through a adjacent neutral country. consequently the belligerent actions of his opponents neither required nor justify any interference with shipments on their manner to a achromatic port. This rationale was recognized and acted on in the decisions in which Lord Stowell laid down the lines on which captures of such goods should be dealt with .
The second coming of steam baron has rendered it as easy for a belligerent to supply himself through the ports of a neutral contiguous nation as through his own, and has therefore rendered it impossible for his opposition to refrain from interfering with department of commerce intended for the foe merely because it is on its way to a achromatic port .
No better example of the necessity of countering new devices for despatching contraband goods to an enemy by new methods of applying the fundamental [ Page 328 ] principle of the correct to capture contraband can be given than the steps which the Government of the United States found it necessary to take during the American Civil War. It was at that time that the doctrine of continuous ocean trip was inaugural applied to the capture of contraband, that is to say, it was then for the first time that a aggressive found himself obliged to capture contraband goods on their way to the enemy, even though at the time of capture they were en route for a inert port from which they were intended subsequently to continue their journey. The policy then followed by the Government of the United States was not inconsistent with general principles already sanctioned by international law, and met with no protest from His Majesty ’ s Government, though it was upon british cargoes and upon british ships that the losses and the troublesomeness ascribable to this new development of the application of the erstwhile rule of external law chiefly fell. The criticism which have been directed against the steps then taken by the United States came, and come, from those who saw in the methods employed in Napoleonic times for the prevention of bootleg a limit upon the right itself, and failed to see that in Napoleonic times goods on their way to a neutral port were immune from appropriate, not because the immediate destination conferred a privilege, but because get under such circumstances was unnecessary .
The facilities which the introduction of steamers and railways have given to a belligerent to introduce contraband goods through neutral ports have imposed upon his opposition the extra difficulty, when endeavouring to intercept such craft, of distinguishing between the goods which are actually destined for the department of commerce of that impersonal nation and the goods which are on their way to the enemy. It is one of the many difficulties with which the United States Government found themselves confronted in the days of the Civil War, and I can not do better than quote the words which Mr. Seward, who was then Secretary of State, used in the course of the diplomatic discussion arising out of the capture of some goods on their way to Matamoras which were believed to be for the insurgents :
Neutrals engaged in honest barter with Matamoras must expect to experience troublesomeness from the existing blockade of Brownsville and the adjacent coast of Texas. While this Government sincerely regrets this inconvenience, it can not relinquish any of its aggressive rights to favor bootleg trade with guerrilla district. By insisting upon those rights, however, it is sure that that necessity for their exercise at all, which must be deplored by every friendly commercial office, will the more quickly be terminated .
The opportunities now enjoyed by a aggressive for obtaining supplies through neutral ports are far greater than they were fifty dollar bill years ago, and the geographic conditions of the present conflict lend extra aid to the foe in carrying out such importing. We are faced with the trouble of intercepting such supplies when arranged with all the advantages that flow from complicate administration and lavish outgo. If our belligerent rights are to be maintained, it is of the first importance for us to distinguish between what is in truth bona fide trade intended for the neutral nation concerned and the trade intended for the enemy country. Every feat is made by organizers of this barter to conceal the genuine finish, and if the innocent neutral deal is to be distinguished from the enemy barter it is substantive that His Majesty ’ randomness Government should be entitled to make, and should make, careful question with regard to the destination of particular shipments of goods even at the risk of some slender delay to the parties interested. If such enquiries were not made, either the exercise of our combatant rights would have to be abandoned, tending to the prolongation of this war and the increase of the loss and suffering which it is entailing upon the wholly universe, or else it would be necessity to indulge in indiscriminate captures of neutral goods and their detention throughout all the period of the resulting prize-court proceedings. Under the system now adopted it has been found potential to release without stay, and consequently without appreciable loss to the parties interest, all the goods of which the address is shown as the resultant role of the enquiries to be impeccant.
It may well be that the system of making such enquiries is to a certain extent a new initiation, in that it has been practised to a far greater extent than in former wars ; but if it is correctly described as a modern departure, it is a departure which is wholly to the advantage of neutrals, and which has been [ Page 329 ] made for the determination of relieving them so far as potential from loss and troublesomeness .
There was a passage in a note which the State Department addressed to the british Ambassador at Washington on the seventh November to which I think it may be well to refer : In the opinion of this Government, the combatant correct of visit and search requires that the search should be made on the senior high school seas at the time of the sojourn, and that the conclusion of the search should rest upon the tell found on the ship under investigation, and not upon circumstances ascertained from external sources .
The principle here enunciated appears to me to be inconsistent with the practice in these matters of the United States Government, a well as of the british Government. It surely was not the principle upon which the United States Government acted either during the Civil War or during the Spanish-American War, nor has it ever been the practice of the british Government, nor thus far as I am aware, of any other government which has had to carry on a capital naval war ; as a principle I think it is impossible in modern times. The necessity for giving the belligerent captor broad liberty to establish by all the tell at his disposal the enemy finish with which the goods were shipped was recognized in all the leading decisions in the respect courts of the United States during the Civil War .
No clear exemplify could be given than the reporter ’ south statement of the case of the Bermuda ( 3 Wallace, 514 ) : The final address of the cargo in this especial ocean trip was left so skillfully open … that it was not quite easy to prove, with that certainty which american english courts require, the purpose, which it seemed plain must have actually existed. frankincense to prove it required that truth should be collated from a variety show of sources, darkened and disguised ; from others opened as the causal agent advanced, and by accident only ; from coincidences undesigned, and facts that were circumstantial. Collocations and comparisons, in short, brought largely their corporate military unit in aid of attest that was more direct .
It is not impossible that the naturally of the show clamber will show the necessity for aggressive action to be taken in diverse ways which may at first sight be regarded as a departure from honest-to-god exercise. In my note of the 7th, January, I dealt at some distance with the question of the necessity of taking vessels into interface for the purposes of carrying out an effective search, where search was necessary ; to that national I feel that I need not again recur .
The growth in the size of steamships necessitates in many cases that the vessels should go into calm urine, in order that tied the right of visit, as apart from the right of research, should be exercised. In modern times a soft-shell clam is capable of pursuing her ocean trip regardless of the conditions of the weather. Many of the neutral merchantmen which our naval officers are called upon to visit at ocean are encountered by our cruisers in places and under conditions which render the introduction of a gravy boat impossible. The conditions during winter in the North Atlantic frequently render it impracticable for days together for a naval policeman to control panel a vessel on her way to scandinavian countries. If a combatant is to be denied the right field of taking a neutral bottom, met with under such conditions, into steady water in rate that the visiting officeholder may go aboard, the proper of visit and of search would become a nullity .
The present battle is not the foremost in which this necessity has arisen. As long ago as the Civil War the United States found it necessity to take vessels to United States ports in order to determine whether the circumstances justified their detention .
The same indigence arose during the Russo-Japanese War and besides during the moment Balkan War, when it sometimes happened that british vessels were made to deviate from their course and follow the cruisers to some blemish where the mighty of visit and of research could be more handily carried out. In both cases this exercise of combatant rights, although questioned at beginning by His Majesty ’ sulfur Government, was ultimately acquiesced in .
No baron in these days can afford during a great war to forego the exercise of the right of visit and search. Vessels which are obviously harmless merchantmen [ Page 330 ] can be used for carrying and laying mines, and even fitted to discharge torpedoes. Supplies for submarines can without difficulty be concealed under other cargoes. The only protection against these risks is to visit and search thoroughly every vessel appearing in the zone of operations, and if the circumstances are such as to render it impossible to carry it out at the topographic point where the vessel was met with, the only feasible course is to take the ship to some more convenient vicinity for the purpose. To do so is not to be looked upon as a fresh belligerent right, but as an adaptation of the existing right to the mod conditions of department of commerce. Like all aggressive rights, it must be exercised with due regard for inert interests, and it would be excessive to expect a neutral vessel to make long deviations from her class for this determination. It is for this reason that we have done all we can to encourage neutral merchantmen on their way to ports adjacent to the foe country to visit some british port lying on their line of route in order that the necessary interrogation of the transport ’ south papers, and, if required, of the cargo, can be made under conditions of public toilet to the ship herself. The alternate would be to keep a vessel which the naval officers desired to board waiting, it might be for days together, until the weather conditions enabled the visit to be carried out at sea .
No war has so far been waged in which neutral individuals have not occasionally suffered from undue combatant action ; no neutral has experienced this fact more frequently in the past than Great Britain. The only method by which it is possible to harmonize aggressive carry through with the rights of neutrals is for the combatant state to provide some adequate machinery by which in any such font the facts can be investigated and appropriate redress can be obtained by the neutral individual. In this country such machinery is provided by the powers which are given to the prize court to deal not only with captures, but besides with claims for compensation. Order V, rule 2, of the british trophy court rules, provides that where a transport has been captured as trophy, but has been subsequently released by the captors, or has by loss, destruction, or differently ceased to be detained by them, without proceedings for disapprobation having been taken, any person interested in the ship ( which by Order I, dominion 2, includes goods ) wishing to make a claim for costs and damages in respect thereof, shall issue a writ as provided by Order I [ II ]. And writ thus issued will initiate a proceed, which will follow its ordinary run in the prize court .
This rule gives the prize court ample legal power to deal with any claim for compensation by a neutral rebel from the interference with a embark or goods by our naval forces. The best evidence that can be given of the discrimination and the moderation with which our naval officers have carried out their duties is to be found in the fact that up to this time no proceedings for the recovery of compensation have been initiated under the dominion which I have quoted .
It is the coarse know of every war that neutrals whose attempts to engage in fishy trade are frustrated by a belligerent are wont to have recourse to their Government to urge that diplomatic remonstrances should be made on their behalf, and that right should be obtained for them in this way. When an effective manner of right is open to them in the courts of a educate area by which they can obtain adequate satisfaction for any invasion of their rights which is contrary to the police of nations, the only run which is reproducible with sound principle is that they should be referred to that mode of damages, and that no diplomatic action should be taken until their legal remedies have been exhausted, and they are in a position to show leading facie defense of department of justice .
The course adopted by His Majesty ’ s Government during the American Civil War was in hard-and-fast accordance with this principle. In hurt of remonstrances from many quarters, they placed entire reliance on the american choice courts to grant damages to the parties interested in cases of alleged wrongful capture by american english ships of war, and put advancing no claims until the opportunities for damages in those courts had been exhausted. The lapp course was adopted in the Spanish-American War, when all british subjects who complained of captures or detentions of their ships were referred to the choice courts for relief .
Before leaving the subject may I remind your excellence of the fact that at your request you are now supplied immediately by this department with particulars of every ship under American colors which is detained, and of every cargo of cargo in which an american citizen appears to be the party interested. [ page 331 ] not only is the fact of detention notified to your excellency, but therefore far as is feasible the grounds upon which the vessel or cargo has been detained are besides communicated to you, a concession which enables any United States citizen to take steps at once to protect his interests .
His Majesty ’ south Government have besides done all that lies in their baron to insure rapid action when ships are reported in british ports. They realize that the ship and cargo owners may sanely expect an immediate decision to be taken as to whether the transport may be allowed to proceed, and whether her cargo or any function of it must be discharged and put into the prize court. Realizing that the ordinary methods of interdepartmental parallelism might cause delays which could be obviated by another method of operation, they established respective months ago a particular committee, on which all the departments concerned are represented. This committee sits daily, and is provided with a especial clerical staff. a soon as a transport reaches port full particulars are telegraphed to London, and the subject is dealt with at the future converge of the committee, contiguous steps being taken to carry out the legal action decided upon. By the borrowing of this procedure it has been found possible to reduce to a minimal the delays to which neutral shipping is exposed by the exercise of belligerent rights, and by the necessity, imposed by modern times, of examining with care the finish of bootleg articles .
particular attention is directed in your excellence ’ second notice to the policy we are pursuing with regard to conditional contraband, specially foodstuffs, and it is there stated that a number of american cargoes have been seized without, so far as your excellence ’ s Government are informed, our being in self-control of facts which warranted a reasonable impression that the shipments had in reality a aggressive destination, and in hurt of the presumption of innocent use ascribable to their being destined to neutral territory. The note does not specify any particular seizures as those which formed the basis of this complaint, and I am therefore not mindful whether the passage refers to cargoes which were detained before or since the regulate in council of the 29th October was issued .
Your excellency will no doubt remember that soon after the outbreak of war an ordering of His Majesty in council was issued under which no eminence was drawn in the application of the doctrine of continuous ocean trip between absolute bootleg and conditional bootleg, and which besides imposed upon the achromatic owner of contraband reasonably drastic conditions as to the burden of proof of the guilt or artlessness of the cargo .
The rationale that the charge of proof should always be imposed upon the captor has normally been admitted as a theory. In practice, however, it has about always been otherwise, and any student of the respect courts ’ decisions of the past or even of advanced wars will find that goods rarely escape condemnation unless their owner was in a position to prove that their address was innocent. An attack was made some few years ago, in the unratified Declaration of London, to formulate some definite rules upon this subject, but prison term entirely can show whether the rules there laid down will stand the quiz of modern war .
The rules which His Majesty ’ second Government published in the order in council of the twentieth August, 1914, were criticized by the United States Government as contrary to the by and large recognized principles of international law, and as inflicting unnecessary adversity upon neutral commerce, and your excellency will remember the elongated discussions which took place between us throughout the calendar month of October with a view to finding some new formulæ which should enable us to restrict supplies to the foe forces, and to prevent the issue to the enemy of materials necessity for the make of munitions of war, while inflicting the minimum of injury and intervention with inert commerce. It was with this object that the order in council of the 29th October was issued, under the provisions of which a far greater measuring stick of unsusceptibility is conferred upon achromatic commerce. In that ordering the principle of non-interference with conditional bootleg on its direction to a achromatic port is in large measure admitted ; only in three cases is the veracious to seize maintained, and in all those cases the opportunity is given to the claimants of the goods to establish their artlessness .
Two of those cases are where the ship ’ mho papers afford no information as to the person for whom the goods are intended. It is only reasonable that a aggressive should be entitled to regard as fishy cases where the shippers of the goods do not choose to disclose the name of the individual who is to receive them. The one-third still is that of goods addressed to a person in the [ Page 332 ] enemy district. In the peculiar circumstances of the present struggle, where the forces of the foe consist so boastfully a symmetry of the population, and where there is so little attest of shipments on private as distingu shed from Government bill, it is most reasonable that the burden of proof should rest upon the claimant .
The most unmanageable questions in connection with conditional contraband rise with reference to the cargo of foodstuffs. No country has maintained more stoutly than Great Britain in advanced times the principle that a doorbell gerent should abstain from noise with the foodstuffs intended for the civil population. The circumstances of the introduce struggle are causing His Majesty ’ second Government some anxiety as to whether the existing rules with respect to conditional bootleg, framed as they were with the object of protecting so far as possible the supplies which were intended for the civil population are effective for the function, or desirable to the conditions present. The rationale which I have indicated above is one which His Majesty ’ second Government have constantly had to uphold against the enemy of continental powers In the absence of some certainty that the govern would be respected by both parties to this battle, we feel bang-up doubt whether it should be regarded as an prove rationale of external law .
Your excellency will, no doubt, remember that in 1885, at the clock time when His Majesty ’ mho Government were discussing with the french Government this question of the right to declare foodstuffs not intended for the military forces to be contraband, and when public attention had been drawn to the matter, the Kiel Chamber of Commerce applied to the german Government for a statement of the latter ’ randomness views on the subject. Prince Bismarck ’ s solution was as follows : In answer to their representations of the 1st instantaneous, I reply to the Chamber of Commerce that any disadvantage our commercial and carrying interests may suffer by the treatment of rice as contraband of war does not justify our opposing a bill which it has been thought fit to take in carrying on a foreign war. Every war is a capital calamity, which entails evil consequences, not alone on the combatants, but besides on neutrals. These evils may easily be increased by the intervention of a neutral power with the means in which a one-third carries on the war, to the disadvantage of the subjects of the interfering office, and by this entail german department of commerce might be weighted with far heavier losses than a ephemeral prohibition of the rice deal in chinese waters. The bill in question has for its object the shortening of the war by increasing the difficulties of the foe, and is a justifiable step in war if impartially enforced against all impersonal ships .
His Majesty ’ mho Government are disposed to think that the like view is still maintained by the german Government .
Another circumstance which is now coming to light is that an elaborate machinery has been organized by the enemy for supply of foodstuffs for the use of the german army from oversea. Under these circumstances it would be absurd to give any definite pledge that in cases where the supplies can be proved to be for the manipulation of the enemy forces they should be given dispatch immunity by the simpleton expedient of despatching them to an agent in a neutral port .
The cause for drawing a distinction between foodstuffs intended for the civil population and those for the arm forces or enemy Government disappears when the distinction between the civil population and the armed forces itself disappears .
In any country in which there exists such frightful administration for war as now obtains in Germany there is no clear diversion [ division ] between those whom the Government is creditworthy for eating and those whom it is not. know shows that the baron to requisition will be used to the fullest extent in order to make sure that the [ wants ] of the military are supplied, and however much goods may be imported for civil use it is by the military that they will be consumed if military exigencies require it, particularly now that the german Government have taken see of all the foodstuffs in the state .
I do not wish to overburden this note with statistics, but in proof of my instruction as to the unprecedented extent to which supplies are reaching inert ports, I should like to case the figures of the exports of certain kernel products to Denmark during the months of September and October. Denmark is a area which in convention times imports a certain measure of such products, [ Page 333 ] but exports placid more. In 1913, during the above two months, the United States exports of lard to Denmark were nothing, as compared with 22,652,598 pounds in the lapp two months of 1914. The represent figures with regard to bacon were : 1913, nothing ; 1914, 1,022,195 pounds ; canned gripe, 1913, nothing ; 1914, 151,200 pounds ; pickled and cured [ beef ], 1913, 42,901 pounds ; 1914, 156,143 pounds ; pickled pork barrel, 1913, nothing ; 1914, 812,872 pounds .
In the like two months the United States exported to Denmark 280,176 gallons of mineral lubricating oil in 1914 as compared with 179,252 in 1913 ; to Norway, 335,468 gallons in 1914, as against 151,179 gallons in 1913 ; to Sweden, 896,193 gallons in 1914, as against 385,476 gallons in 1913 .
I have already mentioned the framing of the holy order in council of the 29th October, and the transmission to your excellency of particulars of ships and cargoes seized as instances of the efforts which we have made throughout the course of this war to meet all reasonable complaints made on behalf of american citizens, and in my eminence of the 7th January I alluded to the decisiveness in the event of the Miramichi, as evidencing the big principles adopted toward achromatic department of commerce .
I should besides like to refer to the steps which we took at the beginning of the war to insure the rapid free of cargo claimed by neutrals on control panel enemy ships which were captured or detained at the outbreak of war. Under our prize-court rules unblock of such goods can be obtained without the necessity of entering a claim in the respect court if the documents of title are produced to the officer representing His Majesty ’ mho Government, and the style to the goods is established to his atonement. It was concisely found, however, that this routine did not provide for the case where the available attest was so bare that the officer representing the Crown was not justified in consenting to a dismissal. In order, consequently, to ameliorate the situation we established a particular committee, with fully powers to authorize the release of goods without insisting on full evidence of title being produced. This committee dealt with the utmost expedition with a boastfully number of claims. In the great majority of cases the goods claimed were released at once. In addition to the cases dealt with by this committee a identical large total of cargo was released at once by the procurator general on production of documents. Claimants consequently obtained their goods without the necessity of applying to the respect court and of incurring the expense involved in retaining lawyers, and without the risk, which was in some cases a considerable one, of the goods being finally held to be enemy property and condemned. We have reason to know that our action in this matter was highly appreciated by many american english citizens .
Another exemplify of the efforts which His Majesty ’ south Government have made to deal adenine laxly as possible with impersonal interests may be found in the policy which we have followed with regard to the transfer to a neutral flag of enemy ships belonging to companies which were incorporated in the enemy country, but all of whose shareholders were achromatic. The rules applied by the british and by the american prize courts have always treated the flag as conclusive in favor of the captors in cattiness of neutral proprietary interests ( see the sheath of the Pedro, 175 U. S., 354 ). In several cases, however, we have consented to waive our belligerent veracious to treat as foe vessels ships belonging to companies incorporated in Germany which were subsidiary company to and owned by american corporations. The only condition which we have imposed is that these vessels should take no further part in trade wind with the enemy country.
I have given these indications of the policy which we have followed, because I can not help feeling that if the facts were more in full known as to the efforts which we have made to avoid inflicting any evitable injury on neutral interests, many of the complaints which have been received by the presidency in Washington, and which led to the protest which your excellence handed to me on the twenty-eighth December would never have been made. My promise is that when the facts which I have set out above are realized, and when it is seen that our naval operations have not diminished american trade with inert countries, and that the lines on which we have acted are coherent with the fundamental principles of international law, it will be apparent to the Government and people of the United States that His Majesty ’ second Government have hitherto endeavoured to exercise their belligerent rights with every possible consideration for the interests of neutrals .
It will still be our endeavor to avoid wound and passing to neutrals, but the announcement by the german Government of their intention to sink merchant [ Page 334 ] vessels and their cargoes without confirmation of their nationality or character, and without making any provision for the guard of non-combatant crews or giving them a chance of saving their lives, has made it necessary for His Majesty ’ second Government to consider what measures they should adopt to protect their interests. It is impossible for one aggressive to depart from rules and precedents and for the other to remain bound by them .
I have [ etc. ]
