File No. 12655.
The Acting Secretary of State to the British Chargé.
Washington, September 5, 1908.
Sir: Referring to the embassy’s notes of March 27, August 11, and August 21,1 last, concerning the international maritime conference to be held at London during the month of October of the current year, I have the honor to say that the department has given careful consideration to the suggestion that each Government invited to the conference prepare and exchange memoranda setting forth its practice in the matters specifically mentioned in the tentative program for the conference, submitted in the British embassy’s note of March 27.
The attitude of the United States is well known to each of the participating powers, as is their maritime practice to the delegates appointed by the United States. The delegates to the Second Hague Peace Conference were thus instructed by the Secretary of State:2
As to the framing of a convention relative to the customs of maritime warfare, you are referred to the Naval War Code promulgated in General Orders, No. 551, of the Navy Department of June 27, 1900, which has met with general commendation by naval authorities throughout the civilized world, and which, in general, expresses the views of the United States, subject to a few specific amendments suggested in the volume of International Law Discussions of the Naval War College of the year 1903, pages 91 to 97. The order putting this code into force was revoked by the Navy Department in 1904, not because of any change of views as to the rules which it contained, but because many of those rules, being imposed upon the forces of the United States by the order, would have put our naval forces at a disadvantage as against the forces of other powers upon whom the rules were not binding. The whole discussion of these rules, contained in the volume to which I have referred, is commended to your careful study.
You will urge upon the peace conference the formulation of international rules for war at sea and will offer the Naval War Code of 1900, with the suggested changes, and such further changes as may be necessary by other agreements reached at the conference, as a tentative formulation of the rules which should be considered.
The attitude of the United States has not changed since the conference, but the relevant portion of the instructions copied for your information are as applicable to the maritime conference as they were to the Second Hague Peace Conference.
I have the honor, therefore, to transmit herewith copies of the Naval War Code of 1900 and of the volume of International Discussions of the Naval War College for the year 1903, containing the amendments to be made to the Naval War Code of 1900, to serve as a basis of discussion in the conference, subject, of course, to amendment, in lieu of the memoranda proposed to be prepared and exchanged by each power invited to the maritime conference.
I have, etc.,
- Not printed.↩
- See Foreign Relations, 1907, p. 1128 et seq., at p. 1137.↩