SUBMARINE MINES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 78, 28 September 1907, Page 7

SUBMARINE MINES.

■« BRITISH ATTEMPTS AT REGULATION. B» Tclciriaph.— Press Association. — Couyright. (lleceived September 28, 8.40 a.m.) THE HAGUE, 27th Sept. A committee has rejected British attempts to adequately rcgulat* submarin* mines, and has adopted a form of regulation highly unsatisfactory to shipping inLarests. Great Biitain submitted to the cot: ference five articles embodying hei pio posals for the employment of siibas.riiiG mines m warfare. First, the British delegates pioposcd that the use of na moored submarine contact mines bhouM' be prohibited, also submarine automat.: contact mines, which, on leaving their moorings, do not become inoflensiyb. Another suggestion was that the em ployment of submarine automatic con- . tact mines for establishing or~ maintaining a blockade oi commerce should be forbidden. The fourth article stated : "Bolligerents can only make, use of submarine automatic contact mines in their own territorial waters, or in thoso ot their enemies. a::d only before fortified ( war ports. The distance not to exceed 'ten miles from tho positions of guns on laud." Necessary precautions, it was enjoined, should be taken to safe guard neutral ships engaging in lawf'ij commcfcfe, and "the mines should be so constructed that they should cease to fca dangerous at ths end of a suitable time. Of these proposals Japan desired the first lo read : "Automatic submarine contact mines, unmoored, aro prchibiv ed, except as rcgardfe those manufactured in such a manner a& to benonib absolutoly inoffensive after a limited period of submersion, so as to offer no daug,r to neutral ships oulsidt tfci ifninfioja.j sphere of hostile action." Italy would havo the article more bevere still. She proposed that floating mines should be so constructed that they would become innocuous an hour after they had been launched, and that" moored mine.-, must be so constructed that should they break their moorings, thpy would become inoffensive.