File No. 763.72111G27/24
The Secretary of State to the German Ambassador (Bernstorff)
Washington, December 11, 1914.
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 21st ultimo in regard to the internment of the German S. S. Locksun at Honolulu.
In reply I have the honor to call your attention to the expression “part of a warship,” which occurs throughout your note. I do not understand from what source this expression is derived, as I do not find it in the correspondence of the Department to you on this subject. In my note to you of the 16th ultimo it was stated that the Locksun, having been shown to have taken the part of a supply ship for the Geier, is, in the opinion of this Government, stamped with the belligerent character of that vessel, and has really become part of her equipment. This of course does not state that she is a “part of a warship.” A tender is a part of the equipment of a vessel of war in the sense of acting as an auxiliary to such a vessel in the matter of carrying supplies and possibly giving other assistance. In a very real sense a vessel of war so attended may be considered as a belligerent expedition of which the tender is a part of the equipment, but to put a tender in the category of “part of a warship” is to suggest that the treatment to be accorded the tender shall be governed by the rules of contraband.
In the circumstances of this case, as known by the Department, it is obliged to state that it still adheres to its previous position that the status of the Locksun as a tender to the ship of war Geier was sufficiently proved to justify her treatment as such. In this connection the Department has the honor to call to your attention the following quotation from the award of the Alabama Claims Commission, which seems to establish this principle regarding the treatment of tenders, although the application of this statement was not made to the exact circumstances of the Locksun case:
And so far as relates to the vessels called the Tuscaloosa (tender to the Alabama), the Clarence, the Tacony, and the Archer (tenders to the Florida), the tribunal is unanimously of opinion that such tenders or auxiliary vessels, being properly regarded as accessories, must necessarily follow the lot of their principals and be submitted to the same decision which applies to them respectively.
The entire practice of the internment of vessels appears to be of recent origin. The doctrine of internment was apparently first applied to any great extent during the Russo-Japanese war, and it is believed that the treatment of the Locksun is in keeping with the high standard of neutrality upon which the doctrine of internment is based. The Department is not aware that measures to preserve neutrality are entirely dictated by precedent and international law, and it believes that belligerents hardly have proper cause to question an attitude on neutrality justly in advance of precedent and international law, if it is applied by the neutral impartially to all belligerents. As to the advisability of assuming such an attitude, the Department is impressed with the proposition that the neutral and not the belligerent is the proper judge in the circumstances.
[Page 593]You refer to the case of the tug F. B. Dalzell, which you state carried supplies and information to the English warship Essex from the port of New York, and suggest that this case in no wise differs from that of the steamship Locksun. In reply I have the honor to inform you that the result of this Government’s investigation is to the effect that the tug Dalzell did not as a fact carry supplies and information to any British warship from the port of New York. If, however, your excellency is in possession of facts showing the contrary, the Government will be glad to be furnished with such data in order that it may renew its investigation and establish the truth in regard to the tug Dalzell, whether or not it agrees with the present finding of the Government. It will be recalled, however, that the tug Dalzell is an American vessel and therefore is not subject to internment as that term is understood in international law. This circumstance is not regarded, however, as relieving the Government from the duty of preventing the use of American ports as bases of naval operations as required by the provisions of Hague Convention XIII of 1907.
Accept [etc.]