The American Neutrality Zone

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22921, 18 January 1940, Page 6

The American Neutrality Zone

The British Government's refusal to admit the claim of the American republics, contained in their note of protest oVer the Graf Spee engagement, to a neutral zone extending 300 miles seawards from their coasts can hardly arouse either surprise or indignation. For the refusal does riot imply a rigid adherence to the three-mile limit of territorial waters generally accepted in international law and is not unsympathetic to the earnest desire of the American republics to insulate themselves as far as possible fr|>m the war. The affair of the Gral Spee has %hown clearly enough that, in modern conditions of warfare, the three-mile limit, which was established at a time when the outside range of heavy artillery was three miles, is dangerously inadequate, Nor is it likely that the British Government would, in its capacity as a belligerent, reject any reasonable proposal by the American republics for its extension. But the British Note insists that no State or group of States has the right to introduce by unilateral declaration modifications of international law which affect the rights of other States. To this objection on a point of principle is added a more practical objection. The whole concept of territorial waters is based on the assumption that a State can exercise an effective control over the waters immediately adjoining its coastline, which become, in effect, part of its territory and subject to • its sovereignty. That is, the right of control proceeds from the capacity to control. It would, however, be a transparent fiction to endow the republics of Latin America, which among them have not six seaworthy cruisers, with authority over a 300-mile neutrality belt. Moreover, even the naval and air resources of the United States would not be adequate for the policing of this vast area, on the supposition, which is still no more than a supposition, that the Latin American republics would be willing to delegate the task to the United States. In the circumstances, the 300-mile neutrality belt would be an unfair curtailment of th& belligerent right of the Allies, since it would become an • easy refuge for German merchantmen - and warships. And since the American republics would find it impossible to prevent infringements of their neutral rights by such vessels, the enlarged neutrality zone would defeat its own purpose by bringing the war nearer to the Americas instead ei keeping it away from them.