The Acting Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Coffee Exchange of the City of New York
Washington , October 9, 1914.
Sir: The Department acknowledges receipt of your letter of October 2, transmitting a resolution adopted by the board of managers of the coffee exchange of the City of York, on the subject of the seizure and destruction of ships of belligerent nations engaged in the transportation of coffee from neutral ports to the United States, and in reply begs to say that the resolution will receive the most careful consideration.
The practice of nations in the past, stated generally, has been to sink prizes of war taken on the seas if either the ship or any part of her cargo was neutral property only when military necessity made this course imperative. This practice has now been embodied, at least in part, in the rules on the subject laid down by the Declaration of London, which Germany appears to have adopted for her guidance in the present naval warfare, and on which she has presumably based her action in this instance. It is not to be presumed, however, that the German Government will refuse to grant indemnity for neutral property which has been lost in such manner and which would otherwise have been restored by a court of prize.
I am [etc.]