File No. 763.72111N83/87
The Chargé in Norway ( Schoenfeld) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 29, 6.25 a.m.]
1183. In answer to note of August 29 last regarding the protection of Norwegian territorial waters against belligerent submarines, the Minister for Foreign Affairs to-day read and handed to me a note under to-day’s date which is as follows in translation:
With reference to your note of August 29 last regarding measures to be taken in respect of cases of violation of Norwegian territorial waters I have the honor to again point out that the Norwegian Government is determined, by the means it finds most serviceable, to insure compliance with the orders it has issued for the protection of the security of the national territory and that it will hold every belligerent power accountable for violation of these regulations.
Meanwhile the Norwegian Government feels itself obliged to make the following remarks with regard to your note:
The thirteenth Hague convention of 1907 provides expressly in article 10 that a country’s neutrality is not called in question by the mere fact that belligerent war vessels are permitted to pass through its territorial waters. No exception is made in this provision of the [Page 1787] convention for submarine boats. The fact that Norway by a domestic regulation has conditionally forbidden such war vessels to pass through her territorial waters does not in any respect change the position of Norway under international law and gives the belligerents no right to make a demand on the Norwegian Government which is not based on general rules of international law. The regulation in question, as stated in my note of August 20, was called forth exclusively by consideration of Norway’s own interests, and just as a similar regulation has [not] been made by all other neutral states, so Norway would also be fully entitled by international law to revoke this regulation if, according to circumstances, at a given time Norway should no longer find it compatible with her interests.
There is no information before the Norwegian Government that Norwegian territorial waters are being used by foreign submarines as a “rendezvous”. None of the circumstances surrounding the cases of sojourn of submarines in territorial waters which the Norwegian naval authorities have observed or been informed of or which are brought by the British Government confidentially to the knowledge of the Norwegian Government, indicate that these cases involved anything else than passage.
Accept [etc.]
London advised.