File No. 656.119/487½
The Netherland Minister of Foreign Affairs ( Loudon) to the British Minister in the Netherlands ( Townley)1
In your note of 22d March Your Excellency was good enough to inform me that the Associated Governments, in virtue of the so-called “right of angary,” have decided to requisition the services of Dutch vessels lying in their ports. Your Excellency added that this measure is due to delay on the part of the Queen’s Government in “ratification” of the arrangement elaborated in respect of tonnage and to the impossibility of putting into execution the modus vivendi or provisional arrangement concluded pending ratification of the definite arrangement above mentioned in consequence of the attitude of Germany towards this arrangement. According to Your Excellency’s [Page 1441] Government, delay would have modified the circumstances, the condition that Dutch tonnage would not be employed in danger zone was no longer acceptable, and the putting into execution of the definite arrangement would only have succeeded after difficulties and delays still more harmful to the interests of the Associated Governments.
In the first place, I must remark that the Queen’s Government, as Your Excellency knows, in no way agree to the interpretation now given to the right of angary, an ancient rule unearthed for the occasion and adapted to entirely new conditions in order to excuse seizure en masse by a belligerent of the merchant fleet of a neutral country. This measure, which only rests on force, is unjustifiable, whether one is pleased to give it the name of “requisitioning of services” or any other label destined to conceal its arbitrary character, and if its application be limited or not to the duration of the war or mitigated in its details so as to make it more supportable. The so-called right of angary is the right of a belligerent to appropriate as an exception a neutral ship for a strategical end of immediate necessity, as, for example, to close the entrance of a seaport so as to hinder the attack of an enemy fleet. Application of this right to a fleet en masse is an interpretation entirely arbitrary and incidental (d’occasion).
It is further my duty to observe to Your Excellency that the recital of facts contained in your note is far from being exact.
The “Basis of Agreement” drawn up in London was not an arrangement properly speaking which only had to be ratified. During the negotiations in London it had been expressly agreed that it was only a question of the basis on which the Netherlands Government would make proposals. I specially raised this question in the note which I addressed to the States-General on 11th [12th?] March last1 and the exactitude of which the President of the United States has in every respect confirmed in the declaration made in connection with the proclamation of 20th March.
Definite proposals could only have been made by the Netherlands Government on the 17th March. The first resistance of the German Government had certainly contributed to delay, but the British Government suppress certain points of the highest importance in their narration of the facts. I will permit myself therefore to bring the following to your recollection:—
The object of the modus vivendi was to give Dutch ships in America an opportunity to sail, and this for the Associated Governments’ interests, pending conclusion of a definite arrangement. It is true that hire of vessels was slower than had been hoped, a fact in a great [Page 1442] measure attributable to the circumstance that for a reason still unknown telegrams exchanged between shipowners and their agents in the United States either did not pass or only passed with great delay; it is true also that some ships reserved on the express demand of the Netherlands Government for the Belgian Relief Commission were unable to be used for this end, because Germany did not consent to the departure of Dutch ships to be sent from Holland in exchange for those leaving the United States; this could not, however, have caused real delay seeing that the United States Government was immediately notified by the Netherlands Government of this contretemps in order to be able to give the ships reserved for the Belgian Relief Commission another destination. Likewise there was no delay in duly freeing the few ships reserved for provisioning of Switzerland and to be sent to the port of Cette as soon as the French had guaranteed their immunity. Except in the case of the ships of the C.R.B. Germany did not interfere in anything as regards the execution of the modus vivendi, which, moreover, only had bearing, for the rest, on navigation between overseas countries.
Almost all the ships in question were duly freed, and many of them had already sailed, when, on the 22d February last, the Netherlands Government, taking note of the want of wheat threatening the country towards the beginning of next summer, asked the Associated Governments, and in particular America, to make them an advance of 100,000 tons of wheat on the total included in the basis of the agreement of London. On the 6th March the Associated Governments acceded to this request, but on onerous conditions, obtaining in exchange for this generosity immediate disposal of Dutch tonnage, which, according to the above-mentioned basis of the agreement of London, could eventually be employed in the service of Allied interests. The Netherlands Government were not prevented by their neutrality from accepting this agreement, since neutrality could only be called into question if Dutch ships were employed for the service of miltary revictualling between America and the Allied countries of Europe. But from the day after, namely the 7th March, the proposal of the Associated Governments suddenly took on quite a new aspect; they insisted more especially, and that in flagrant contradiction to what had been expressly laid down since the discussions in London, that Dutch ships should be used also in the danger zone; in other words, for transport of every description between America and England, France, or Italy. This new condition was inacceptable from the point of view of neutrality unless it were guaranteed that the ships would not be employed for transport either of troops or of war supplies and that they were not armed. The British and United States Governments and their [Page 1443] allies, not finding themselves able to acquiesce in these restrictions on the free use they wished to be able to make of ships which did not belong to them, nothing appeared more simple to them than to proceed to the seizure of all Dutch ships on which they could lay their hands, declaring that it was a question of exercising an indisputable right. Your Excellency has watched the resentment and indignation which this measure of violence applied to the merchant fleet has produced in the whole country and amongst all classes of the population. The Queen’s Government have not concealed to what extent they share these feelings. No expression of good-will in application of this measure, such as the intention to replace the ships destroyed, repatriate crews, etc., could repair the fact that it has been taken in defiance of the right and of the respect due to the sovereignty of states. It only remains for me to beg Your Excellency to be good enough to transmit to His Majesty’s Government, and through their intermediary to the Governments of which they are the mouthpiece, the most energetic protest of the Queen’s Government against the seizure of which the Dutch merchant fleet is the victim.
The Netherlands Government reserve all their rights to complete repair for injury resulting from this act.
Your Excellency informs me that the Associated Governments engage not to take into their service without the consent of the owners Dutch ships leaving a Dutch port from 20th March.
To provide for the wants of a country threatened with famine, the Associated Governments declare themselves ready to place 100,000 tons of wheat or of flour at the disposal of the Netherlands. They hope that the Government will not be slow in sending to fetch this grain in Dutch ships, for which they then guarantee as far as they can all necessary facilities. Your Excellency will please note that in the actual circumstances it is impossible for the Netherlands Government to consent to a further despatch of ships, giving the innumerable difficulties they have experienced in the past, and the different pretexts under which their ships, after having put into overseas ports in good faith, have been detained there indefinitely, often for reasons not connected with the ship or its cargo, the whole culminating in this last measure of seizure, which has so deeply wounded the national dignity.
I recall in this connection the case of ships now in the United States, and which once there were unable to obtain “letters of assurance”—a new regulation which did not exist at the moment they entered into port; or, again, the case of ships which were detained in Halifax solely in order to force the Netherlands Government to stop the transit of metals on their territory, the legality of [Page 1444] which transit the British Government contested; again, the case of ships held at present at Gibraltar, at Freetown, and at Halifax, and which had complied with all formalities required; again, those of our ships at Singapore, which felt themselves to be quite unassailable, thanks to the cordial relations existing for so long between the Dutch East Indies and the Straits Settlements, thanks also to the stipulations of the “Rice Agreement” of recent date; finally, the case of Dutch ships now detained in United Kingdom ports, to which they sailed in execution of the clauses of the agricultural agreement or for service of the Belgian Relief Commission.
What guarantee would the Netherlands Government have that the ships, which they would now send to overseas ports, would not be for some reason or other first detained, and then, owing to the necessities of war, seized like the others?
Negotiations for an economic arrangement having been abruptly terminated by the action of the Associated Governments, it is for them to declare what are their intentions now that they have made impossible a partition of tonnage such as had been provided for in the agreement which the Netherlands Government had declared themselves ready to conclude on the 17th March last. As to the “rationing,” for example, it goes without saying that it is for the country which produces the commodities and other goods destined for the Netherlands, to decide whether they will deliver them or not, apart from the question of possibility of transport.
In conclusion, as regards the enquiry of the Associated Governments as to the amount of tonnage now in or on the way to Dutch ports, the Queen’s Government consider in the new circumstances any exchange of views in this respect would be useless.
- Text as given in the British print [Cd. 9025, Miscellaneous No. 11 (1918)] enclosed in despatch No. 8988 from the Ambassador in Great Britain, May 8, received May 24. An incomplete text as received by telegraph was sent to the War Trade Board by the British Embassy, Apr. 13 (War Trade Board files: Holland Negotiations, vol. III).↩
- See telegram No. 2138, Mar. 13, from the Minister in the Netherlands, ante, p. 1410.↩