witness that public or private mails found on board neutral vessels were examined, landed, and, when occasion arose, seized.

18. Thus in May and July, 1904, postal correspondence carried on the steamships Osiris (British) and Prinz Heinrich (German) was examined by the Russian cruisers to see whether it contained Japanese correspondence. Thus, again, in July, 1904, the steamer Calchas (British), captured by Russian cruisers, had 16 bags of mail that had been shipped at Tacoma by the postal authorities of the United States, seized on board and landed, and the prize court of Vladivostok examined their contents, which it was recognized it could lawfully do. · (Russian Prize Cases, p. 139.)

19. As regards the practice of Japan, the Japanese rules concerning prizes, dated March 15, 1904, made official enemy correspondence, with certain exceptions, contraband of war. They ordered the examination of mail bags on mail steamers unless there was on board an official of the post office, making a declaration in writing and under oath that the bags contained no contraband; it was even added that no account should be taken of such a declaration if there existed grave suspicions. On the other hand, the Japanese prize court rules acknowledged the power of those courts in the examination of prize cases to examine letters and correspondence found on board neutral vessels. (Takahashi, International Law Applied to Russo-Japanese War, p. 568.)

20. The French practice during the war of 1870 is found outlined in the naval instructions of July 26, 1870, under which official dispatches were on principle assimilated to contraband, and official or private letters found on board captured vessels were to be sent immediately to the minister of marine. Subsequently the circumstances of war permitted of the rule in additional instructions, under which, if the vessel to be visited was a mail steamer having on board an official of the post office of the Government whose flag she displayed, the visiting officer might be content with that official's declaration regarding the nature of the dispatches.

21. During the South African War the British Government was able to limit its intervention in the forwarding of postal correspondence and mails as far as the circumstances of that war allowed, but it did not cease to exercise its supervision of the mails intended for the enemy.

22. As to the practice followed by the Government of the United States during the American Civil War, particularly in the Peterhoff case, cited in the American memorandum of May 24, 1916, the following instructions issued in that case by the Secretary of State of the United States, do not seem to imply anything but the forwarding of correspondence which had been found to be innocent: "I have, therefore, to recommend that in this case, if the district attorney has any evidence to show the mails are simulated and not genuine, it shall be submitted to the court; if there be no reasonable grounds for that belief, then that they be put on their way to their original destination." (Letter of Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, to Mr. Welles, Secretary of the Navy, Apr. 15, 1863; VII Moore's Dig., p. 482.)

23. Finally, as regards the free transit granted to mails by the United States during the Mexican War, one may be allowed to recall the circumstances under which this proceeding was adopted. By

84610°-H. Doc. 2111, 64-2, pt 2—15

a letter dated May 20, 1846, notified on the following 10th of July, the commander of the U. S. cruiser St. Mary announced the blockade of the port of Tampico. Although that measure authorized without doubt the seizure and confiscation of all correspondence for a blockaded port, the American naval authorities, on learning the circumstances of the case, declared "Neutral noncommercial mail packets are free to enter and depart," and it was even added that "Mexican boats engaged exclusively in fishing will be allowed to pursue their labor unmolested." (British State Papers, vol. 35, 1846-47.)

24. It seems difficult to compare the blockade of the port of Tampico in 1846 with the measures taken by the allies in the course of this war to reduce the economic resistance of the German Empire, or to find in the method then adopted by the United States a precedent which condemns the practice now put in use by the allied Govern

ments.

25. To waive the right to visit mail steamers and mail bags intended for the enemy seemed in the past (Dr. Lushington, Naval Prize Law, Introd., p. vii) a sacrifice which hardly could be expected of belligerents. The allied Governments have again noted in their preceding memorandum how and why, relying on certain declarations of Germany, they had thought in the course of the second peace conference of 1907 they could afford to waive that right. They have also drawn the attention of the Government of the United States to the fraudulent use Germany hastened to make of this waiver of the previous practices above mentioned.

26. After pointing to a certain number of specific cases where American interests happened to be injured from the postal supervision exercised by the British authorities forming the subject of the special memorandum of the Government of His Majesty dated July 20, 1916, the Government of the United States was pleased to make known its views as to what is to be and is not to be recognized as not possessing the charter of postal correspondence.

27. In this respect the Government of the United States admits that shares, bonds, coupons, and other valuable papers; money orders, checks, drafts, bills of exchange, and other negotiable papers, being the equivalent of money, may, when included in postal shipments, be considered as of the same nature as merchandise and other property, and therefore be also subjected to the exercise of belligerent rights.

28. Yet the American memorandum adds that correspondence, including shipping documents, lists of money orders, and documents of this nature, even though referring to shipments to or exports by the enemy, must be treated as mail and pass freely unless they refer to merchandise on the same ship that is liable to capture.

29. As regards shipping documents and commercial correspondence found on neutral vessels, even in an allied port and offering no interest of consequence as affecting the war, the allied Governments have instructed their authorities not to stop them but to see that they are forwarded with as little delay as possible. Mail matter of that nature must be forwarded to destination as far as practicable on the very ship on which it was found or by a speedier route, as is the case for certain mails inspected in Great Britain.

30. As for the lists of money orders, to which the Government of the United States assigns the character of ordinary mail, the allied Governments deem it their duty to draw the attention of the Government of the United States to the following practical consideration:

31. As a matter of fact the lists of money orders mailed from the United States to Germany and Austria-Hungary correspond to moneys paid in the United States and payable by the German and Austro-Hungarian post offices. Those lists acquaint those post offices with the sums that have been paid there which, in consequence, they have to pay to the addressees. In practice such payment is at the disposal of such addressees and is effected directly to them as soon as those lists arrive, and without the requirement of the individual orders having come into the hands of the addressees. These lists are thus really actual money orders transmitted in lump in favor of several addressees. Nothing, in the opinion of the allied Governments, seems to justify the liberty granted to the enemy country so to receive funds intended to supply by that amount its financial resisting power.

32. The American memorandum sees fit firmly to recall that neutral and belligerent rights are equally sacred and must be strictly respected. The allied Governments, so far as they are concerned, wholly share that view. They are sincerely striving to avoid an encroachment by the exercise of their belligerent rights on the legitimate exercise of the rights of innocent neutral commerce, but they hold that it is their belligerent right to exercise on the high seas the supervision granted them by international law to impede any transportation intended to aid their enemy in the conduct of the war and to uphold his resistance. The rights of the United States as a neutral power can not, in our opinion, imply the protection granted by the Federal Government to shipments, invoices, correspondence, or communications in any shape whatever having an open or concealed hostile character and with a direct or indirect hostile destination, which American private persons can only effect at their own risk and peril. That is the very principle which was expressly stated by the President of the United States in his neutrality proclama

tion.

33. Furthermore, should any abuses, grave errors, or derelictions committed by the allied authorities charged with the duty of inspecting mails be disclosed to the Governments of France and Great Britain, they are now as they ever were ready to settle responsibility therefor in accordance with the principles of law and justice which it never was and is not now their intention to evade.

The Government has had a lengthy correspondence touching the matter of censorship of telegrams and cablegrams, transmitted by wireless and cable, which need not here be reproduced. The points of controversy indicate the difficulty of any neutral country securing unbiased information as news when these avenues of transmission are not open.

Another source of controversy with England grows out of the exercise of the power to take from American steamships German citizens:

THE SECRETARY OF STATE TO AMBASSADOR W. H. PAGE.

[Telegram-Paraphrase.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE. Washington, February 23, 1916.

Mr. Lansing informs Mr. Page that the department is advised by American consuls in Hongkong, Nagasaki, and Shanghai, and by the owners of the American steamship China, that on the 18th instant the British cruiser Laurentic stopped the China on the high seas, about 10 miles from the entrance to the Yangtzekiang, boarded her with an armed party, and, despite the captain's protest, removed from the vessel 28 Germans, 8 Austrians, and 2 Turks, including physicians and merchants, and took them to Hongkong, where they are detained as prisoners in the military barracks. As it is understood that none of the men taken from the China were incorporated in the armed forces of the enemies of Great Britain, the action of the Laurentic must be regarded by this Government as an unwarranted invasion of the sovereignty of American vessels on the high seas. After the notice given to the British Government of this Government's attitude in the Piepenbrink case in March last, which was based upon the principle contended for by Earl Russel in the Trent case, this Government is surprised at this exercise of belligerent power on the high seas far removed from the zone of hostile operations. Ambassador Page is directed to present this matter to the Government of Great Britain at once and to insist vigorously that if facts are as reported orders be given for the immediate release of the persons taken from the China.

(File No. 341.622a/84.)

AMBASSADOR W. H. PAGE TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE.

No. 3259.]

AMERICAN EMBASSY, London, March 17, 1916. SIR: With reference to the department's telegram No. 2924, of February 23, 1916, protesting against the removal of 38 enemy subjects of Great Britain by the British ship Laurentic from the steamship China on the high seas off the entrance to the Yangtze River, I have the honor to inclose herewith a copy of a note, dated the 16th instant, from the foreign office in reply to the representations I made to Sir Edward Grey in the premises.

I have, etc.,

WALTER HINES PAGE.

[Inclosure.]

THE BRITISH SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO AMBASSADOR W. H. PAGE.

FOREIGN OFFICE, March 16, 1916. YOUR EXCELLENCY: His Majesty's Government have given the most careful consideration to the memorandum which your excellency was good enough to communicate to me on the 24th ultimo, conveying

a protest from the United States Government against the removal of 38 enemy subjects by His Majesty's ship Laurentic from the steamship China on the high seas off the entrance to the Yangtse River, and I now have the honor to offer the following observations as an expression of the views of His Majesty's Government in regard to the matter.

The latest attempt to define by common agreement the limits within which a belligerent naval power may remove enemy persons from neutral ships on the high seas is represented by article 47 of the Declaration of London, 1909. This article permitted the arrest of such persons if "embodied in the armed forces of the enemy," without regard to the destination of the ship on which they were found traveling. The commentary on article 45 of the declaration contained in the report of the drafting committee of the London naval conference states that on practical, not legal, grounds it was agreed that the terms "embodied in the armed forces of the enemy " should be considered as not including reservists not yet attached to their military units.

At the beginning of the war His Majesty's Government adhered to articles 45 and 47 of the Declaration of London, as interpreted by the report of the drafting committee. They took this step as a matter of convenience, being at liberty, as the declaration was an unratified instrument, to cancel at any time their adherence, provided always that their subsequent action did not conflict with the general principles of international law. When the German authorities began to remove able-bodied persons of military age from the occupied portions of France and Belgium, His Majesty's Government, as indicated in the circular note which I had the honor to address on the 4th November, 1914, to the representatives of neutral powers in London, felt that they could no longer accept the restrictive interpretation placed for practical reasons on the terms of article 47 of the Declaration of London by the report of the drafting committee, and that they must arrest all enemy reservists found on board neutral ships on the high seas, no matter where they might be met.

I am aware that the United States Government, after their suggestion early in the war that the belligerent powers should adopt the Declaration of London in its entirety as a code of international naval law did not find general acceptance, having declared that they no longer consider the declaration as being in force. I have referred at some length to the bearings of the declaration on the position of His Majesty's Government in this question, because article 47 represents the latest, if not the only, attempt to arrive at a definition, by common consent of the chief maritime nations, of the law in regard to the matter. The attempt was necessarily conditioned by the experience of previous wars, and the definition was reached after weighing the claims and the convenience of neutral shipping against the importance to belligerent powers, as shown by the experience of previous wars, of preventing enemy subjects from proceeding to their destination and pursuing the hostile purposes for which they were organized.

It is evident, however, from the foregoing observations that the principle (often contended for in the past by certain continental nations) that there are certain classes of persons who are not protected by a neutral flag on the high seas and may therefore, without