THE DECLARATION OF LONDON.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 26, 1 February 1911, Page 6

THE DECLARATION OF LONDON.

o The curious announcement reached us by cable on Monday that "the Daily Mail publishes what it terms an official defence of the Declaration of London." The Daily Mail is surely about the last organ that the present Government would select as the vehicle for its official defence of anything, but official views' do sometimes leak out, especially into the halfpenny papers, and it is not the official defence but an official defence that the Daily Mail claims to have published. There is certainly nothing in the defence, as cabled, that is inconsistent with what may be taken to be the Ministerial view of tbo position. The emphasising of the obvious may appear to b© the strong point of the publication, and yet, as we suggested yesterday, the obvious has been not uncommonly overlooked in the controversy which the Declaration of London has aroused. The point thus overlooked is that the crucial provisions of the Declaration— those, namely, relating to blockade, contraband, conditional contraband, and free goods — do not touch vessels belonging to either of two nations at war. Britain ■will be as free after a declaration of war to injure the commerce of her enemy, and under just the same obligation to protect her . own commerce, if this convention is ratified -aB if it is not. "The ships of belligerents," as the Daily Mail article points out, "have no immunities under the Declaration, of London, and the security of food convoys is dependent on their own navies." The opponents of the Declaration are accused of ignoring this vital point and creating the impression that British merchantmen would sail on the high seas unprotected and at the mercy o-f I the enemy. As a matter of fact, however, all the distinctions, recognised by the Declaration between different classes of cargo do not concern the shipping of belligerents. Foodstuffs and raw material carried in a vessel flying the flag . of a will be just as much liable to seizure as vrar-like store*. Whether the result is a matter for congratulation or otherwise it is an existing liability which the Declaration does not alter in the slightest degree. It is only through the rights of neutrals that the rights of belligerents are affected by the Declaration, and here it is the treatment of conditional contraband that has excited the keenest controversy. The practice relating to absolute contraband is too well established to give anyl trouble. Arms of all kinds, projectiles, ammunition, and any other articles of a distinctively military character have always been liable to seizure as contraband under whatever flag they may be carried. These things are ipso facto contraband, and are liable to capture if destined 'to territory belonging to or occupied by the enemy, or to the armed forces of the enemy. Hero the Declaration simply leaves matters ss it finds them, and nobody desires to 6ee any change made. The trouble begins when the class of conditional contraband reached. "The following articles, susceptible of use in war, as well as for purposes of peace, may, without notice," says the Declaration, "be treated as contraband of war under the name of conditional contraband," and a list follows under fourteen heads,^ which range from foodstuffs to field glasses, telescopes, chronometers, and all kinds of nautical instruments. A later article provides a list of things which may not be declared contraband of war under any conditions. The raw materials of the textile industries are given the place of honour in this list, and manures, metallic ores and agricultural, mining, textile, and printing machinery are some of the other principal items. Subject to the exemptions covered by this list, any Power may enlarge ths range of conditional contraband at pleasure by a Declaration duly notified to the other Poweis. By Article 33 conditional contraband is declared to be liable to captm%e "if it is shown to be destined to the use of armed forces or of a Government Department of the enemy State, unless, in this latter case, the circumstances show- that the goods cannot in fact be used for the purposes of the war 111 progress." It is round this controversy, especially in its relatim to foodstuffs, that the storm of controversy has rag-pd most fiercely.