File No. 763.72112/12928
The British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Grey) to the British Ambassador at Washington (Spring Rice)
London, September 28, 1914.
[Handed to the Acting Secretary of State
by the British Ambassador, October 1, 3 p.m. ]
[Telegram—Copy]
United States Ambassador has spoken to me.
I said Declaration of London had not been ratified. Parliament had opposed it. It was analogous to something which the Senate opposed and which had therefore never been ratified or come into force.
[Page 237]Previous to the Declaration of London doctrine of continuous voyage had been part of international law; I believed that it had been upheld by the United States courts and it therefore must remain part of international law until abrogated by some rational agreement binding on governments. Since August 20 we had issued another proclamation also departing from Declaration of London. I claimed that our proclamation should be judged by the rules of international law as hitherto accepted and acted on by court, and applied in previous wars.
Germany had not observed the Declaration of London for she treated all pit props as contraband of war though they were consigned entirely to private firms.
We had only two objects in our proclamations. To restrict supplies for German army and to restrict supply to Germany of materials essential for making of munitions of war. We wished to attain these objects with the minimum of interference with the United States and other neutral commerce.
The British Government could not offer to withdraw their proclamations at once and declare complete absence of interference with everything destined for Germany but we felt it essential to have some agreement with the United States Government. It might be stated at once that the United States Government had raised the question of interference with trade under rules of contraband of war and that we had agreed to discuss the matter without delay.
This discussion will begin tomorrow with the Ambassador and Mr. Chandler Anderson with the view to come to an agreement.
Meanwhile I have pointed out that we have not confiscated a single cargo. Any cargo diverted has been sold at its full value without loss to the exporter. We will at once examine any case about which there is complaint pending an agreement and consequent revision of our proclamations.
The Ambassador said that there was no desire to press the case of people who traded deliberately and directly with Germany, but there was great feeling against stopping legitimate American trade with Holland which had always been large, and it was difficult to disentangle the two questions.
When I instanced detention of two vessels full of copper consigned direct to Krupp, the Ambassador said that no objection could be taken to detaining that.