A DECISION QUESTIONED.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17701, 1 March 1923, Page 7

A DECISION QUESTIONED.

AMERICA'S COMPLAINT. (BY CABLE —PRBSB ASSOCIATION —OOPIBIGHT.) (AUST&AUAN AI?D K.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION.) WASHINGTON;.' February 2&.' she American Note to Norway says it is also to be regretted that , the, award fails to give a satisfactory explanation of the manner in which the tribunal arrived at the amount awarded or the rateof' interest. Article 70 of The Hague Convention of 1907, under which the claims were submitted, provide that the tribunal must give the reasons on which it bases an award. ' The United States, therefore, cannot accept as proper and satisfactory, in international arbitrations, the mode in which the damages have been assessed, or the absence of a reasoned statement' indicative of the method of computation. [A previous message stated that Jhe United States Government had handed the Norwegian Ambassador a Treasury draft for 12,239,652 dollars, for ships requisitioned during the war. A Note accompanied the payment, pointing out that the United States gives tangible proof of her desire to respect arbitral awards, and her devotion to the principle of arbitral settlement, even m face of a decision proclaiming certain theories at large which cannot be accepted as. hereafter binding upon this Government as a precedent. The award subjects the requisitioning Government to a different test, and a heavier burden, where neutral nations own property, than in cases where the nations of the requisitioning State own it. There is no such duty to discriminate in favour of neutral aliens, as is believed to be imposed on the State by international law, with respect to property such as is concerned in the present case, where vessels belonging to private Norwegians, situated in United States territorial waters were requisitioned.]