The Declaration of Paris
Sir,—There is really no question at issue between your two correspondents Mr. Gibson Bowles and “Anglo-Saxon” as to the attitude of the United States towards the Declaration of Paris.
Mr. Bowles rightly maintains that the United States has not acceded to the Declaration as a whole, or to its second article, which exempts from capture enemy property in neutral ships. He means, of course, that neither the whole nor any part of that Declaration has been ratified by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The whole contains, indeed, an article on privateering, to which, as it stands, the United States have always objected, and no part of the Declaration can be accepted separately.
“Anglo-Saxon,” on the other hand, is equally justified in asserting that the “officially-recorded policy” of the States, i.e. of the Executive, is in accordance with Art. 2 of the Declaration. This policy has been consistently followed for more than half a century. Its strongest expression is perhaps to be found in the President’s Proclamation of April 26, 1898, in which, after reciting that it being desirable that the war with Spain “should be conducted upon principles in harmony with the present views of nations and sanctioned by their recent practice, it has already been announced that the policy of the Government will not be to resort to privateering, but to adhere to the rules for the Declaration of Paris,” he goes on to “declare and proclaim” the three other articles of the Declaration. The rule of Art. 2, as to exemption of enemy goods in neutral ships, was embodied in Art. 19 of the Naval War Code of 1900 (withdrawn in 1904, for reasons not affecting the article in question), and reappears in Art. 17, amended only by the addition of a few words relating to “hostile assistance” in the draft Code which the United States delegates to the Conferences of 1907 and 1908 were instructed to bring forward “with the suggested changes, and such further changes as may be made necessary by other agreements reached at the Conference, as a tentative formulation of the rules which should be considered.” (My quotation is from the instructions as originally issued in English.) Such changes as have been made in the Code are due to discussions which have taken place between high naval and legal authorities at the Naval War College. I do not know whether the annual reports of these discussions, with which I am kindly supplied, are generally accessible, but would refer, especially with reference to the Declaration of Paris, to the volumes for 1904 and 1906.
It can hardly be necessary to add that no acts of the Executive, such as the Proclamation of 1898, the order putting in force the Code of 1900, or the instructions to delegates in 1907 and 1909, amount to anything like a ratification of the Declaration in the manner prescribed by the Constitution of the United States.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND
Oxford, January 4 (1911).