763.72112/710e
The Secretary of State to President Wilson
My Dear Mr. President: I am enclosing a flimsy of a despatch from Gerard.57b This is the most interesting communication we have received from him lately.
[Page 288]I also enclose an additional suggestion by Mr. Lansing57c (by the way, I learned from one of the messengers in the White House that the envelope which I sent over yesterday evening about half past seven, was laid upon your table and I presume it was while you were at dinner. It contained notes on several subjects.) In the enclosed note Mr. Lansing calls attention to the difference between the law governing blockades and the law governing contraband. This is one of the points to which I called attention in my note of yesterday.57d
In the matter of the blockade we can make allowance for the use of new implements of warfare but the changing of conditions does not affect the laws in regard to contraband. Unless a belligerent has a right to add everything to the contraband list we cannot concede their right to interfere with shipments through neutral countries of such merchandise as is not contraband. In refusing to recognize the right we do not necessarily resort to force. My own idea is that we cannot afford to make merchandise a cause for the use of force. If we have any disputes about merchandise which cannot be settled during the war, they can be settled afterwards, and if we have any disputes which cannot be settled by agreement between the parties, they can, in due time, be submitted to investigation and arbitration, but it seems to me that we must distinguish between the rules applicable to blockade and the rules applicable to non-contraband goods shipped to neutral ports, reserving for future consideration any questions which may arise, first, concerning the effectiveness of the blockade, and second, concerning the interference with non-contraband goods.
With assurances [etc.]
- Foreign Relations, 1915, supp., p. 354.↩
- Supra.↩
- Ante, p. 285.↩