DECLARATION OF LONDON.

Southland Times, Issue 14633, 25 January 1911, Page 5

DECLARATION OF LONDON.

AUSTRALIA'S OBJECTIONS SITUATION SUMMED UP. (By Telegraph—Preas xisocu.tlou—Copyright). LONDON, Jan. 24. Received 24, 9.20 p.m. The Daily News says that If the Imperial Conference supports Australia in regard to the Declaration of London the decision will practically kill the declaration. As far as England is concerned the declaration does not place Britain in a worse position as regards raw material and foodstuffs. It would be a pity if the declaration were obstructed because it was less progressive than It might be. The Daily News interviewed Sir J. W. Taverner (Victorian Ag:ent General), who declared that ratification of the declaration as it stands would be a heathen policy. Germany and France wert self-supporting. Britain was incapable of providing food for her millions, but was dependent on other countries, notably Australia. A DEFENCE OF FT. LONDON, Jan. 23. The Westminster Gazette says that the Declaration of London gives a code of international law instead of leaving it, has hitherton, dependent on the combatants, who, if the Declaration is accepted will find that the bulk of the raw materials for our industries are exempted from seizure. Pood supply will ba better safe-guarded by the Declaration,inasmuch as the French and German' courts have decided that foodstuffs can be declared absolute contraband, which, position must be abandoned under the Declaration. Britain’s safety lies In the power to keep the sea open, not In any international agreement.

The “Declaration of London” has been brought into prominence by a book written by Mr T. Gibson Bowles, entitled

“Sea Law and Sea Power.” In a. review of the work in the Daily Mail Mr H. W. Wilson says;—

“At the instance of Germany the operations of our navy in the time of war are to be submitted to the arbitrament of a foreign international court, the judges of which will be drawn from such great naval states as Colombia, Turkey, Paraguay, Persia, Rouraania, and Haytl. To this revolution the British Government has already agreed. The surrender thus made involves supersession of those ancient and famous British Courts, the Admiralty Prize Courts and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the abolition of their final jurisdiction in matters of naval prize, and the submission of them and their decisions to a new foreign court, sitting at the Hague.

"Let us take from Mr Bowles’s pages three examples of the manner in which the laws of naval war have been transformed to suit the German Admiralty with the timid acquiescence of the British Foreign Office; —1. The right of blockade has been so limited as to paralyse our fleets. Neutral ships making for blockaded ports may not be captured ‘except within the area of operations of the warships detailed to render the blockading effective.’ •If a British fleet were blockading the German coast from Borkum to Kiel British cruisers could not capture blockade-runners oft the Shetlands or in the Straits of Dover. This is an entirely new and arbitrary restriction, which takes from us our advantages of geography. Outside a limited, narrowed, undefined, and undefinable zone, the blockade-runner is to go scot-free from any molestation. Not only this, but if the Hague Court holds that 20 ships are necessary to ‘render & blockade, effective,' and one of those 20 chases a blockade-runner and leaves her station off the hostile coast, the blockade will be raised, and everybody will be free to enter. 2. Contraband. By a most dangerous piece of carelessness in translation, the British people have been allowed to believe that foodstuffs in war will not be contraband or liable to seizure by hostile cruisers. As a matter of fact, the Declaration of London lays down that where the goods are ‘addressed’ to a ‘trader established in the enemy’s country, who as a matter of common knowledge supplies articles of the kind to the enemy,’ they may be seized. As ‘enemy’ in French and In the context of the declaration means the whole hostile nation, it follows that all foodstuffs addressed to traders In British ports are liable to seizure. Against any such interpretation of international law the British Government haa. steadily fought in the past, and fought.--with success. Now we make over tofoes the right to attack our food sup-... plies. At the same time Mr Bowles shows that the door is opened wide for ■ contraband trade between a neutral.and t our enemies. No vessel carrying contraband can be condemned if the contraband is only half the cargo. A neutral ship of 10,000 tons could carryto an enemy 4000 tons of arms ’and., ammunition with complete impunity. A” Dutch vessel, for example, could convey arms and ammunition to German West Africa, provided that she did not take on board more than half her tonnage of these goods, and we could not touch her. “ 3. Privateering.—To abolish this we made immense surrenders in the Declaration of Pays 50 years ago. By the declaration of London it is left open to be re-established. Germany is to be left able to authorise the sudden transformation outside her own porta by a mere production of paper and bunting into a ship of war of a ship which up to that transformation has set forth as. and claimed to be only, a merchant ship, entitled as such to neutral hospitality and unlimited sufferance, and disentitled to search and seize other vessels on the high seas. Sir Edward Grey protested, but did nothing more, and every nation went away from the conference with the right ‘to maintain its own view.’ ” These are only three of a host of surrenders, each important, each weakening our sea power, each inuring fo the advantage of our enemies—cumulatively disastrous. But lest it should be thought that the British Government sought by this declaration to humanise naval war and to remove its worst barbarities, wa have two more surrenders, perhaps the most deplorable of all. By the first we admitted the right of hostile cruisers to destroy neutral merchantmen v when any so-called military need arises. A German cruiser, that la to say, if Germany is at war with Haytl, might sink British merchantmen out of hand. Such a right has never before been admitted by this country. It is a gross aggravation of the laws of war. Lastly, by the Hague Convention No. S, already ratified, the murderous and merciless submarine mine, which makes no distinction between neutral and enemy, between warship and liner, may be sown anywhere at sea with this ridiculous restriction, that it shall “not be placed on the coasts of an adversary with the sole purpose of intercepting commercial navigation.” Well does Mr Bowles say that this is “manifest mockery.’’’ Yet Britain ratified it with a reservation!