PROTOCOL SIGNED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 265, 9 November 1936, Page 7

PROTOCOL SIGNED

SUBMARINE WARFARE SINKING OF MERCHANT SHIPS RULES PRESCRIBED [ British Official Wireless J RUGBY, Nov. 6. A protocol by which the contracting parties accept rules which provide that, in their action regarding merchant ships, submarines must conform to the rule sof international law to which surface vessels are subject, was signed at the Foreign Office to-day. The Lord President of the Council, Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald, the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Anthony Eden, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Samuel Hoare, signed for the United Kingdom Government, the Ambassadors in London of the United States, Japan, France, and Italy for their respective Governments, and the High Commissioners of the Dominions for their Governments. The Undersecretary for India, Mr. R. A. Butler, signed for India. The text of the protocol was later issued as a Whit? Paper. The rules provide that except in the case of persistent refusal to heave to on being duly summoned or of active resistance to visit or search, a warship, whether a surface vessel or a submarine, shall not sink or render incapable of navigation a merchant, vessel without having first placed the passengers and crew and the ship’s papers in a place of safety. LONDON, Nov. 6. An agreement to humanise submarine warfare has been signed at the Foreign Office by England, America, France, Italy and Japan. It is understood that Germany has informally agreed to adhere to provisions taken from part 4 of the London Naval Treaty of 1930, which lapsed last year,