Germany Wrong Again
Sir,—The new German Note handed on Thursday last to the representatives of the neutral Powers supports its allegation that the four Allied Powers “have trampled upon right and torn up the treaties on which it was based” by the following statement:—
“Already in the first weeks of the war England had renounced the Declaration of London, the contents of which her own delegates had recognised as binding in international law.”
It is surely notorious that the delegates of a Power, by agreeing to the draft of a treaty, give to it no international validity, which results only when the treaty has been ratified by their Government. The Declaration of London has, most fortunately, never been ratified by the Government of Great Britain.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND
Oxford, January 13 (1917).