File No. 763.72/1551
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Page)
1233. In regard to the, recent communications received from the British and French Governments concerning restraints upon commerce with Germany,1 please communicate with the British Foreign Office in the sense following:
The difficulty of determining action upon the British and French declarations of intended retaliation upon commerce with Germany lies in the nature of the proposed measures in their relation to commerce by neutrals.
While it appears that the intention is to interfere with and take into custody all ships both outgoing and incoming trading with Germany, which is in effect a blockade of German ports, the rule of blockade, that a ship attempting to enter or leave a German port regardless of the character of its cargo may be condemned, is not asserted.
The language of the declaration is: “the British and French Governments will, therefore, hold themselves free to detain and take into port ships carrying goods of presumed enemy destination, ownership, [Page 133] or origin. It is not intended to confiscate such vessels or cargoes unless they would otherwise be liable to condemnation.”
The first sentence claims a right pertaining only to a state of blockade. The last sentence proposes a treatment of ships and cargoes as if no blockade existed. The two together present a proposed course of action previously unknown to international law.
As a consequence neutrals have no standard by which to measure their rights or to avoid danger to their ships and cargoes. The paradoxical situation thus created should be changed and the declaring powers ought to assert whether they rely upon the rules governing a blockade or the rules applicable when no blockade exists.
The declaration presents other perplexities.
The last sentence quoted indicates that the rules of contraband are to be applied to cargoes detained. The rule covering non-contraband articles carried in neutral bottoms is that the cargoes shall be released and the ships allowed to proceed. This rule can not, under the first sentence quoted, be applied as to destination. What then is to be done with a cargo of non-contraband goods detained under the declaration? The same question may be asked as to conditional contraband cargoes.
The foregoing comments apply to cargoes destined for Germany. Cargoes coming out of German ports present another problem under the terms of the declaration. Under the rules governing enemy exports only goods owned by enemy subjects in enemy bottoms are subject to seizure and condemnation. Yet by the, declaration it is purposed to seize and take into port all goods of enemy “ownership and origin.” The word “origin” is particularly significant. The origin of goods destined to neutral territory on neutral ships is not and never has been a ground for forfeiture except in case a blockade is declared and maintained. What then would the seizure amount to in the present case except to delay the delivery of the goods? The declaration does not indicate what disposition would be made of such cargoes if owned by a neutral or if owned by an enemy subject. Would a different rule be applied according to ownership? If so, upon what principles of international law would it rest? And upon what rule, if no blockade is declared and maintained, could the cargo of a neutral ship sailing out of a German port be condemned? If it is not condemned, what other legal course is there but to release it?
While this Government is fully alive to the possibility that the methods of modern naval warfare, particularly in the use of the submarine for both defensive and offensive operations, may make the former means of maintaining a blockade a physical impossibility, it feels that it can be urged with great force that there should be also some limit to “the radius of activity,” and especially so if this action by the belligerents can be construed to be a blockade. It would certainly create a serious state of affairs if, for example, an American vessel laden with a cargo of German origin should escape the British patrol in European waters only to be held up by a cruiser off New York and taken into Halifax.
Similar cablegram sent to Paris.1