File No. 763.72111/301
The French Chargé d’Affaires (Clausse) to the Secretary of State
Washington, August 8, 1914.
[Received August 11.]
[Translation]
Mr. Secretary of State: I hear that the collector of customs at New York has sent to our Consul General a communication according to which all that could be utilized for the army, either men or supplies,” will be considered as contraband.
If in accord with a decision of the Federal Government, that communication seems to me to can for the most express reservations:
- 1.
- The law of nations cannot stand in the way of the citizens of a country at war discharging their most sacred duty. Besides, at the time of the Balkan wars, large numbers of reservists returned to their country by groups without any objection being raised.
- 2.
- To forbid the exportation of cereals to the countries now engaged in war would be an unusual extension of neutral obligations, the result of which would weigh likewise on the civilian population of the belligerent countries.
Such a prohibition, based on neutrality, would, on the contrary, be a violation of neutrality, for it would be wholly to the advantage of one belligerent and the disadvantage of the other. Its effect, indeed, would be to deprive the belligerent who should happen to win the mastery of the seas from the benefit of that legitimate superiority.
It is not for me to point out the economic dangers of such a proposition to the state that should order it.
Be pleased to accept [etc.]