STRICTLY LEGAL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20142, 11 January 1940, Page 7

STRICTLY LEGAL

BRITISH ACTION , SEIZING NAZI GOODS BLOCKADE OF EXPORTS JUSTIFIED RETALIATION BROADCAST BY EXPERT (Elfic. Tel. Copyright-—United Press Assn.) i (British Official Wireless.) Rccd. 12 noon RUGBY, Jan. 10, Professor J. L. Brierley, lecturer in international law at Oxford, in a broadcast ta Ik, discussed the legal 1 aspect of the British blockade of German exports as it affected neutrals. The German violation of the Declaration of Paris by sinking both Allied and neutral merchant ships regardless of the nature, ownership, or destination of their cargoes, the violation of the submarine protocol by which she undertook as recently as 1936 not to sink merchant ships without assuring the safety of their crews, and the violation of the eighth Hague Convention, which bound her not to lay mines without taking every possible precaution for the security of peaceful shipping, rendered perfectly justifiable, according to international law, the British retaliatory action of seizing German exports. Prize Court Law Admittedly, neutrals were adversely affected, but the British Prize Court was laying down a good law when, in similar circumstances during the last war, it stated: “The right of retaliation is the right of a belligerent and not a concession by a neutral.” Retaliation was a legal right which could not always be exercised without affecting neutrals, and for the law to lay down that in no circumstances must it do so, would be to take away with one hand what the law had given with the other. It was the definite policy of the Germans to attack Britain through neutrals by illegally sinking neutral shipping to prevent them trading with us. All that could be done was to ensure that the retaliatory action inflicted as little inconvenience as possible on neutrals. That certainly was being done in the present British retaliatory action. Under the Order-in-Council, a neutral ship incurred no penalty, but was merely required to discharge goods laden in a German port or which were of German origin.