ENEMY MERCHANT SHIPS

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 79, 28 December 1925, Page 7

ENEMY MERCHANT SHIPS

QUESTION OF STATUS IN

WARTIME

FAILURE OF SIXTH HAGUE CONVENTION

By Telegraph.—Press Association, Copyright.

London, December 25

As its purpose appears to have wholly failed, the Sixth Convention of The Hague, relative to the status of enemy merchantmen at the outbreak of _hostilities, is denounced by the British Government in a dispatch to His Majesty’s representatives abroad,, signed by Sir Austen Chamberlain. The dispatch says:— “The object of the Convention was to introduce uniformity of practice into the treatment bv belligerent States of enemy merchantmen .in foreign ports on the outbreak of war. These vessels were appropriated bv the Governments concerned, which it is difficult to reconcile with the attitude of the Powers at The Hague in 1907 and with the provisions of the Convention. Owing to a decision of the Privv Council, the British Government is debarred from adopting similar practice.” . . The dispatch . concludes bv pointing out the power? of a signatory to the Convention. Seventeen States had failed to ratify it. Germany and Russia had ratified it with important reservations. arid the United States had not signed it at all.—Reuter.