one year in the case of the independent State of the Congo, so much as hereinbefore described in each and every one of said articles shall be deemed and held to have expired and to be of no force and effect, and thereupon section 5,280 and so much of section 4,081 of the Revised Statutes as relates to the arrest or imprisonment of officers and seamen deserting or charged with desertion from merchant vessels of foreign nations in the United States and territories and possessions thereof, and for the co-operation, aid, and protection of competent legal authorities in effecting such arrest or imprisonment, shall be, and is hereby, repealed.

18. That this Act shall take effect, as to all vessels of the United States, eight months after its passage, and as to foreign vessels twelve months after its passage, except that such parts hereof as are in conflict with articles of any Treaty or Convention with any foreign nation shall take effect as regards the vessels of such foreign nation on the expiration of the period fixed in the notice of abrogation of the said articles as provided in section 16 of this Act.

19. That section 16 of the Act approved the 21st December, 1898, entitled "An Act to amend the laws relating to American seamen, for the protection of such seamen, and to promote commerce," be amended by adding at the end of the section the following:

"Provided, That at the discretion of the Secretary of Commerce, and under such regulations as he may prescribe, if any seaman incapacitated from service by injury or illness is on board a vessel so situated that a prompt discharge requiring the personal appearance of the master of the vessel before an American consul or consular agent is impracticable, such seaman may be sent to a consul or consular agent, who shall care for him and defray the cost of his maintenance and transportation, as provided in this paragraph."

20. That in any suit to recover damages for any injury sustained on board vessel or in its service seamen having command shall not be held to be fellow-servants with those under their authority.

Approved, the 4th March, 1915.

CORRESPONDENCE between the United States Secretary of State and the Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations concerning Questions relating to Neutrality. Washington, January 8/20, 1915.*

(No. 1.) Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs to the Secretary of State.

DEAR MR. SECRETARY:

Washington, January 8, 1915.

As you are aware, frequent complaints or charges are made in one form or another through the press that this Government has shown partiality to Great Britain, France, and Russia as against Germany and Austria during the present war between those powers; in addition to which I have received numerous letters to the same effect from sympathizers with Germany and Austria. The various grounds of these complaints may be summarised and stated in the following form:

1. Freedom of communication by submarine cables, but censorship of wireless messages.

2. Submission to censorship of mails and in some cases to the repeated destruction of American letters found on neutral vessels.

3. The search of American vessels for German and Austrian subjects

(a.) On the high seas.

(b.) In territorial waters of a belligerent.

4. Submission without protest to English violations of the rules regarding absolute and conditional contraband, as laid down

(a.) In the Hague Conventions.

(b.) In international law.

(c.) In the Declaration of London.

5. Submission without protest to inclusion of copper in the list of absolute contraband.

6. Submission without protest to interference with American trade to neutral countries

(a.) In conditional contraband.

(b.) In absolute contraband.

7. Submission without protest to interruption of trade in conditional contraband consigned to private persons in Germany

* From Diplomatic Correspondence published by the United States Department of State-" European War, No. 2."

and Austria, thereby supporting the policy of Great Britain to cut off all supplies from Germany and Austria.

8. Submission to British interruption of trade in petroleum, rubber, leather, wool, etc.

9. No interference with the sale to Great Britain and her allies of arms, ammunition, horses, uniforms, and other munitions of war, although such sales prolong the war.

10. No suppression of sale of dumdum bullets to Great Britain.

II. British warships are permitted to lie off American ports and intercept neutral vessels.

12. Submission without protest to disregard by Great Britain and her allies of

(a.) American naturalization certificates.

(b.) American passports.

13. Change of policy in regard to loans to belligerents: (a.) General loans.

(b.) Credit loans.

14. Submission to arrest of native-born Americans on neutral vessels and in British ports, and their imprisonment.

15. Indifference to confinement of non-combatants in detention camps in England and France.

16. Failure to prevent transhipment of British troops and war material across the territory of the United States.

17. Treatment and final internment of German steamship Geier and the collier Locksun at Honolulu.

18. Unfairness to Germany in rules relative to coaling of warships in Panama Canal Zone.

19. Failure to protest against the modifications of the Declaration of London by the British Government.

20. General unfriendly attitude of Government toward Germany and Austria.

If you deem it not incompatible with the public interest I would be obliged if you would furnish me with whatever information your department may have touching these various points of complaint, or request the counsellor of the State Department to send me the information, with any suggestions you or he may deem advisable to make with respect to either the legal or political aspects of the subject. So far as informed I see no reason why all the matter I am requesting to be furnished should not be made public, to the end that the true situation may be known and misapprehensions quieted.

I have, &c.,

WM. J. STONE.

(No. 2.) The Secretary of State to the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

DEAR MR. STONE:

Department of State, Washington, January 20, 1915.

I have received your letter of the 8th instant, referring to frequent complaints or charges made in one form or another through the press that, this Government has shown partiality to Great Britain, France, and Russia against Germany and Austria during the present war, and stating that you have received numerous letters to the same effect from sympathizers with the latter powers. You summarize the various grounds of these complaints and ask that you be furnished with whatever information the department may have touching these points of complaint, in order that you may be informed as to what the true situation is in regard to these matters.

In order that you may have such information as the department has on the subjects referred to in your letter, I will take them up seriatim.

1. Freedom of communication by submarine cables versus censored communication by wireless.

The reason that wireless messages and cable messages require different treatment by a neutral Government is as follows:

Communications by wireless cannot be interrupted by a belligerent. With a submarine cable it is otherwise. The possibility of cutting the cable exists, and if a belligerent possesses naval superiority the cable is cut, as was the German cable near the Azores by one of Germany's enemies and as was the British cable near Fanning Island by a German naval force. Since a cable is subject to hostile attack, the responsibility falls upon the belligerent and not upon the neutral to prevent cable communication.

A more important reason, however, at least from the point of view of a neutral Government, is that messages sent out from a wireless station in neutral territory may be received by belligerent warships on the high seas. If these messages, whether plain or in cipher, direct the movements of warships or convey to them information as to the location of an enemy's public or private vessels, the neutral territory becomes a base of naval operations, to permit which would be essentially unneutral.

As a wireless message can be received by all stations and vessels within a given radius, every message in cipher, whatever its intended destination, must be censored; otherwise military information may be sent to warships off the coast of a neutral. It is manifest that a submarine cable is incapable of becoming a means of direct communication with a warship on the high seas. Hence its use cannot, as a rule, make neutral territory a base for the direction of naval operations.

2. Censorship of mails and in some cases repeated destruction of American letters on neutral vessels.

As to the censorship of mails, Germany as well as Great Britain has pursued this course in regard to private letters falling into their hands. The unquestioned right to adopt a measure of this sort makes objection to it inadvisable.

It has been asserted that American mail on board of Dutch steamers has been repeatedly destroyed. No evidence to this effect has been filed with the Government, and therefore no representations have been made. Until such a case is presented in concrete form, this Government would not be justified in presenting the matter to the offending belligerent. Complaints have come to the department that mail on board neutral steamers has been opened and detained, but there seem to be but few cases where the mail from neutral countries has not been finally delivered. When mail is sent to belligerent countries open and is of a neutral and private character it has not been molested, so far as the department is advised.

3. Searching of American vessels for German and Austrian subjects on the high seas and in territorial waters of a belligerent.

So far as this Government has been informed, no American vessels on the high seas, with two exceptions, have been detained or searched by belligerent warships for German and Austrian subjects. One of the exceptions to which reference is made is now the subject of a rigid investigation, and vigorous representations have been made to the offending Government. The other exception, where certain German passengers were made to sign a promise not to take part in the war, has been brought to the attention of the offending Government with a declaration that such procedure, if true, is an unwarranted exercise of jurisdiction over American vessels in which this Government will not acquiesce.

An American private vessel entering voluntarily the territorial waters of a belligerent becomes subject to its municipal laws, as do the persons on board the vessel.

There has appeared in certain publications the assertion that failure to protest in these cases is an abandonment of the principle for which the United States went to war in 1812. If the failure to protest were true, which it is not, the principle involved is entirely different from the one appealed to against unjustifiable impressment of Americans in the British Navy in time of peace.

4. Submission without protest to British violations of the rules regarding absolute and conditional contraband as laid down in The Hague Conventions, the Declaration of London, and international law.

There is no Hague Convention which deals with absolute or conditional contraband, and, as the Declaration of London*

* Vol. CIV, page 239.