The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Germany (Gerard) 1

[Telegram]

The Department has received from the American Ambassador at Madrid a request from the King of Spain for our cooperation in [Page 832] making a joint request that arrangements be made between the belligerent countries as to what constitutes hospital supplies and that such supplies in transit on the high seas may be considered by them neither contraband nor conditional contraband of war, but free.

The Department presumes that the country to which you are accredited would be willing to follow the rule in Article 29 of the Declaration of London maintaining the non-contraband character of hospital supplies, but you may confer with your Spanish colleague with a view to making a joint representation to the Foreign Office in the sense indicated.

Lansing
  1. The same to the Ambassadors in Great Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Japan, and to the Minister in Belgium.