File No. 12655/383–384.
The Acting Secretary of State to the British Ambassador.
Washington, October 26, 1909.
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note No. 264, of the 14th instant, wherein, under instructions from your Government, there are submitted for the information of the Government of the United States copies of a circular dispatch inviting the accession to the declaration of London of February 22, 1909, of all the nonsignatory powers, excepting those which were not invited to the Second Peace Conference at The Hague.
It is added that the object of His Majesty’s Government in offering the observations contained in section 6 of the circular is to make it clear to the powers not represented at the London conference that the fact of their acceding to the declaration will be no bar to their proposing at some future peace conference to introduce by way of a new convention any modification in the existing rules of international law as now defined which they wish to see adopted, and that it is hoped that this assurance may help to remove any hesitation which the powers may feel in accepting as they stand the rules embodied in the declaration.
The Government of the United States is thoroughly in accord with the principle that the declaration of London is merely binding upon the powers participating in the conference and that its extension to nonparticipating powers must depend upon their consent freely given. In any event the matter of regulating naval warfare is a proper subject for a future peace conference at The Hague. The ratification of the declaration of London can not be considered in any way as preventing a reexamination of the entire question at a future conference at The Hague to which all the nations will be invited.
I have, etc.,