DECLARATION OF LONDON.

Northern Advocate, 19 December 1910, Page 3

DECLARATION OF LONDON.

THE MARGIN OF SEA POWER,

It iB alleged by Mr H. W. Wilson, in an article in the "National Review" on "The Margin of British Sea Power," that the Declaration of London has assured to Germany her supplies of food and raw material provided they are imported through neutral ports while leaving British supplies open to t.ttack. It is proper to point out that this statement is pure conjecture, based on a guess as to how the International Prize Court constituted by The Hague Convention of 1907 will interpret the provisions of the Declaration of London. Noted juries have agreed that the contention put forward by Mr H. W. Wilson is unsound,, and that food supplies in neutral ships bound for British ports will not be contraband except, when destmrd for the use of the armed forces. The contributor argues that Great Britain will have to keep eight Dreadnoughts in the Mediterranean in 1913 and 1914 to watch the Italian and Austrian ships, and he calculates that Great Britain in the most favourable circumstances will thus have only 17 Dreadnoughts in Home waters to oppose to 21, or possibly 23, German ships.' Mr H. W. Wilson points out that the building of ships by Foreign Powers goes on steadily without intermission, while the British programme oscillates weakly from year to year. < "What Britain requires," he writes, "is an Act modelled on German lines, which shall take naval affairs out of politics and fix the British programme of new construction for a term of years at two ships in each class for each ship laid down by the next strongest Power." Needless to say, this contributor is an earnest advocate of the proposed naval loan of £100,000,000 fcr new construction.