SEIZURE OF GERMAN EXPORTS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 11 January 1940, Page 6

SEIZURE OF GERMAN EXPORTS

-PERFECTLY JUSTIFIABLE” BRITISH RETALIATORY ACTION EXAMINED THE LEGAL ASPECT OF BLOCKADE [British Official Wireless] (Received 11th January, 10.5 a.m.) RUGBY. 10th January. Professor J. L. Brierley in a broadcast talk discussed the legal aspect of the British blockade. He said that German violation of the Declaration of Paris by the sinking of both Allied and neutral merchant ships regardless of the nature, ownership or destination of their cargoes, 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 violation of the Eighth Hague Convention which bound her not to lay mines without taking every possible precaution for the security of peaceful shipping, had rendered perfectly justifiable according to Internatio ial Law the British retaliatory action of seizing German exports. EFFECT ON NEUTRALS Admittedly neutrals were adversely affected, but the British Prize Court was laying down good law when in similar circumstances during the last war it stated, “The right of retaliation is the right of a belligerent, not a concession by a neutral.” Retaliation was the 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. AS LITTLE INCONVENIENCE AS POSSIBLE 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 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.