[Enclosure]
Memorandum by the Counselor for the Department of
State (Lansing) on
the British Order in Council of March 11, 1915
[Washington,]
March 20, 1915.
Query. Why did not the British Government
proclaim a blockade of German ports and notify neutral governments
of that action?
I think the answer to this query is to be found in the fact that the
British Government by their Order in Council of October 29,
1914,52 put in operation during the present war
the Declaration of London with certain modifications and directed
the British Courts to apply its provisions thus modified.
The modifications made by the Order in Council in no way affected the
rules laid down in the Declaration covering the subject of
blockade.
Articles 1, 18 and 19 of the Declaration read as follows:
Article 1
A blockade must not extend beyond the ports and coasts belonging to
or occupied by the enemy.
Article 18
The blockading forces must not bar access to neutral ports or
coasts.
Article 19
Whatever may be the ulterior destination of a vessel or of her cargo,
she cannot be captured for breach of blockade, if, at the moment,
she is on her way to a non-blockaded port.
Manifestly these provisions of the Declaration are directly at
variance with the procedure authorized by the Order in Council of
March 15, 1915.53
To have announced a blockade as extensive in effect as the operations
contemplated in the Order in Council of March 15th would have
compelled the further modification of the Declaration of London by
striking out the three articles quoted. So radical a change in the
accepted theory of a blockade would undoubtedly have aroused general
criticism by neutral governments and would have been embarrassing
for the British Government to defend.
To avoid placing themselves in so different [difficult?] a position diplomatically the British
Government issued the Order in Council [Page 281] of March 15th carefully avoiding the terms
“blockade” in the Order, but in the note of transmittal they not
only use the word “blockade” but seek apparently to have this
Government adopt the idea that it is a blockade and to discuss it
from that standpoint.
It seems to me that the course pursued by the British Government is
very adroit. This Government, however, should not be led into the
trap of admitting that a blockade has been established by the Order
in Council, and should insist that, if it is to be considered a
blockade with its attendant belligerent rights, the British
Government should conform strictly to the rules of blockade
promulgated in their Order in Council of October 29, 1914, namely,
the rules laid down in the first twenty-one articles of the
Declaration of London.
