Untitled

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 793, 25 August 1916, Page 6

The dispute between Britain and Sweden over the seizure of British mails consigned through Sweden to Bussia, seems to have reached an amicable conclusion, at all events the publication of the correspondence concerning the dispute is to be taken as evidence that a settlement has been reached. But in January last the controversy had reached an impasse which threatened to involve the two countries in something more serious than argument. The British Foreign Office took up the definite stand that a parcel, no matter what class of postage it bore, was no more entitled to protection than ordinary freight. This attitude was not controverted by other neutrals, though they protested that the action subjected first-class postal matter, which, according to international law, is inviolate, to interferences and delays, and further objected to the British claim of the right to censor mails in transit. But while other neutrals affected, principally Holland and the United States, dealt with the dispute in polite diplomatic notes, the Swedish Government, influenced, no doubt, by the "Activist" members, immediately set out to reinforce its objections with reprisals. The attitude taken up by Swedish diplomatists was that since the Swedish Government forbade the export of certain articles she had a rigid, equal with the British claim, to hold up the British parcel post and seize such articles, which according to the British contention were not entitled to any more protection than ordinary freight. The correspondence now published shows that the determined attitude of Britain after Sweden's refusal of after-war arbitration caused Sweden to withdraw from what must have been a bluff, and to ask for another chance of accepting arbitration as the solution.