File No. 841.711/213
The Swedish Minister (Ekengren) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 26.]
Sir: I have been instructed by his excellency the Minister for Foreign Affairs at Stockholm to address the following to your excellency:
The Royal Government has, during the present war, from time to time proposed to your excellency that through cooperation it be sought to maintain and preserve certain important rules of international law, which concern protection of neutral commerce and navigation, and which are being violated by Great Britain.
The violation of existing rules of international law has, regardless of protests, increased until at present only a few rules, serving as protection to neutral commercial intercourse, are observed by Great Britain, and it is feared that also these remaining few will be violated.
His Majesty’s Government, which is deeply conscious of its responsibility to not omit any measure tending to prevent such an eventuality, and well aware of the danger for the future if these rules, which are of infinite worth to civilization as a whole, are not preserved, desires to herewith make a renewed representation to your excellency in this respect.
Of late the British authorities have violated the mail traffic. Parcel post from one neutral country to another is being unloaded in British ports and the contents are being seized. While parcel post is not protected through the Hague postal convention, it nevertheless seems to His Majesty’s Government that the British procedure, in the form and extensiveness practiced, would be invalid even with regard to ordinary express goods, and that this seems particularly evident when the seizure of parcel post is directed against a means of conveyance under guarantee of sovereign powers. Besides, great personal inconvenience is connected with seizure of this kind.
However, England’s present practice of censoring also first-class mail, sent by neutral vessels from one neutral country to another, is an even greater violation of the rights accorded neutral powers by the rules of international law. It is not necessary to particularly point out how contrary this practice is to the stipulations in the above-mentioned Hague convention, which stipulations or rules must be considered to have been in existence even before the promulgation of this convention.
The Royal Government therefore now appeals to the Government of the United States for cooperation for the purpose of seeking to bring about a discontinuance of the violations of international law, at least so far as the same concerns first-class mail, and it solicits as early an answer as possible, whether your excellency is willing to take appropriate action in cooperation with the Royal Government, and, eventually, the governments of other neutral countries, for the purpose of causing that the rule which the question involves—and which is one of the fundamental stipulations of international law—be observed.
With renewed assurances [etc.]