Mr. White to Mr.
Hay.
American Embassy,
London, December 17,
1902.
No. 1002.]Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of your telegraphic instructions of the 12th instant, and to
inclose a copy of the note which I thereupon addressed to His Majesty’s
secretary of state for foreign affairs, setting forth the position
assumed by our Government with respect to the “pacific” blockade
proposed by Germany.
I have not yet received a reply to this note, but I have ascertained that
this Government declined some time ago to assent to Germany proposal for
a “pacific” blockade on the ground that they have always maintained a
blockade jure gentium to be the only form of
blockade admissible.
I have, etc.,
[Inclosure.]
Mr. White to
the Marquis of Lansdowne.
American Embassy, London, December 13,
1902.
My Lord: A memorandum was communicated by
the German embassy at Washington to the Department of State on the
20th of December, 1901, in which it is stated that the proposed
pacific blockade of the Venezuelan harbors for some time “would
touch
[Page 455]
likewise the ships
of neutral powers, inasmuch as such ships, although a confiscation
of them would not have to be considered, would have to be turned
away and prohibited until the blockade should be raised.”
I have the honor, with reference to this statement, to acquaint your
lordship that I am instructed by Mr. Secretary Hay to inform His
Majesty’s Government that my Government adheres to the position
taken by it in relation to the Cretan blockade, as explained in the
note addressed on March 26, 1897, by Mr. Sherman, at that time
Secretary of State, to His Majesty’s ambassador at Washington,
wherein it is set forth that the United States does not concede “the
right to make such a blockade as that referred to,” and reserves
“the consideration of all international rights and of any question
which may in any way affect the commerce or interests of the United
States.”
The United States therefore does not acquiesce in any extending of
the doctrine of pacific blockade which may adversely affect the
rights of states not parties to the controversy or discriminate
against the commerce of neutral nations, and my Government reserves
all of its rights in the premises.
I have, etc.,
