NEUTRAL PATROL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 September 1939, Page 5

NEUTRAL PATROL

OF AMERICAN WATERS SUGGESTED AT PANAMA CONFERENCE. PROTECTION OF TRADE. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. NEW ORK, September 25. The Panama City correspondent of the “New York Times’’ states that the' PanAmerican Foreign Ministers will urge belligerents to refrain from hostile actions, including the search and seizure of vessels in American waters south of the Canadian border, and will provide in consultation means to enforce compliance by those unwilling to agree. This is likely to be the conference’s most important action. The details are still in abeyance. The Cubans, Chileans and others have plans ranging from a three-mile limit to halfway across the Atlantic and Pacific. Th actual distance is unimportant, as the long range implication is such as to upset the traditional freedom of the seas. Partisans argue that the belligerents have no right to interfere with purely inter-American shipping and must reserve searches and seizures for zones outside the lines travelled by Pan-American ships. Several delegations are reported to be in favour of a co-operative naval patrol of the American republics.