The Minister of Switzerland in charge of German interests in America to the Secretary of State. MR. SECRETARY OF STATE: [Translation.] LEGATION OF SWITZERLAND, In continuation of my note of yesterday I am asked and I have the honor to inform Your Excellency that, according to a telegram received this day from the Political Department, the German Government's notice of the blockade of the Arctic Ocean is to be completed as follows: The blockaded waters east of the 24th degree of longitude east and south of the seventy-fifth degree of latitude north. Be pleased, etc., P. RITTER. Minister Egan to the Secretary of State. [Telegram.] AMERICAN LEGATION, Copenhagen, April 8, 1917. On August 8, 1914, Foreign Office here published the following notice to mariners: The German Government has issued the following warning to mariners: Vessels are cautioned against approaching places from which attacks from hostile fleets may be expected or harbors and roadsteads from which embarkation of troops may be made, as mines may have been sown in such places. EGAN. Consul General Skinner to the Secretary of State. [Telegram.] AMERICAN CONSULATE GENERAL, London, April 27, 1917. Admiralty Notice 434, dated April twenty-sixth, cancels number 319. entitled caution with regard to dangerous area. New notice repeats former preamble and states that on and after May 3, 1917, will be further extended as undermentioned. Dangerous area: The area comprising all the waters except Netherlands and Danish territorial waters lying to the southward and eastward of a line commencing three miles from the coast of Jutland on the parallel of latitude 56 degrees 00 minutes north, and passing through the following positions: First. Latitude 56 degrees 00 minutes north, longitude 6 degrees 00 minutes east. Second. Latitude 54 degrees 45 minutes north, longitude 4 degrees 30 minutes east. Third. Latitude 53 degrees 15 minutes north, longitude 4 degrees 30 minutes east. Fourth. Latitude 53 degrees 23 minutes north, longitude 4 degrees 50 minutes east. Fifth. Latitude 53 degrees 23 minutes north, longitude 5 degrees 01 minute east. Sixth. Latitude 53 degrees 25 minutes north, longitude 5 degrees 051⁄2 minutes east, and from thence to the eastward, following the limit of Netherlands territorial waters. SKINNER. PART III. RESTRAINTS ON COMMERCE. (Continuation of correspondence printed in Special Supplements, July, 1915, pp. 55-83, 101-125, 141-146, 153-155, 157-165; October, 1916, pp. 58-158.) Ambassador W. H. Page to the Secretary of State. No. 5021.] AMERICAN EMBASSY, London, October 12, 1916. SIR: With reference to the Department's telegram No. 3578, of July 26, 1916, 10 p. m., and to my telegram No. 5003, of the 11th instant, I have the honor to enclose herewith a printed copy of a note I have received from the Foreign Office concerning the Trading with the Enemy Act. I have, etc., [Inclosure.] WALTER HINES PAGE. The British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to Ambassador YOUR EXCELLENCY: W. H. Page. FOREIGN OFFICE, His Majesty's Government have had under consideration the note which your Excellency was good enough to communicate to me on the 28th July last, with respect to the addition of certain firms in the United States of America to the statutory list compiled and issued in accordance with "The Trading with the Enemy (Extension of Powers) Act, 1915." 2. You will recall that shortly after this Act became law, I had the honour, in my note of the 16th February last, in reply to your note of the 26th January, to explain the object of the Act. It is a piece of purely municipal legislation, and provides that His Majesty may by proclamation prohibit persons in the United Kingdom from trading with any persons in foreign countries who might be specified in such proclamations or in any subsequent orders. It also imposes appropriate penalties upon persons in the United Kingdom who violate the provisions of this statute. 3. That is all. His Majesty's Government neither purport nor claim to impose any disabilities or penalties upon neutral individuals or upon neutral commerce. The measure is simply one which enjoins those who owe allegiance to Great Britain to cease having trade relations with persons who are found to be assisting or rendering service to the enemy. 4. I can scarcely believe that the United States Government intend to challenge the right of Great Britain as a sovereign State to pass legislation prohibiting all those who owe her allegiance from trading with any specified persons when such prohibition is found necessary in the public interest. The right to do so is so obvious that I feel sure that the protest which your Excellency handed to me has been founded on a misconception of the scope and intent of the measures which have been taken. 5. This view is strengthened by some of the remarks which are made in the note. It is, for instance, stated that these measures are "inevitably and essentially inconsistent with the rights of the citizens of all nations not involved in war." The note then proceeds to point out that citizens of the United States are entirely within their rights in attempting to trade with any of the nations now at war. His Majesty's Government readily admit that the citizens of every neutral nation are free to trade with belligerent countries. The United States. Government will no doubt equally readily admit that they do so subject to the right of the other belligerent to put an end to that trade by every means within his power which is recognized by international law, by such measures, for instance, as the seizure of neutral goods as contraband, or for breach of blockade, etc. The legislation, however, to which exception is taken does not belong to that class of measures. It is purely municipal. It is an exercise of the sovereign right of an independent State over its own citizens, and nothing more. This fact has not, I feel sure, been fully realised by the Government of the United States of America, for the note maintains that the Government cannot consent to see these remedies and penalties altered and extended at will in derogation of the right of its citizens; and says that "conspicuous among the principles which the civilized nations of the world have accepted for the safeguarding of the rights of neutrals is the just and honourable principle that neutrals may not be condemned nor their goods confiscated, except upon fair adjudication and after an opportunity to be heard in Prize Courts or elsewhere." 6. As I have said above, the legislation merely prohibits persons in the United Kingdom from trading with certain specified individuals, who, by reason of their nationality or their association, are found to support the cause of the enemy, and trading with whom will therefore strengthen that cause. So far as that legislation is concerned, no rights or property of these specified individuals are interfered with; neither they nor their property are condemned or confiscated; they are as free as they were before to carry on their business. The only disability they suffer is that British subjects are prohibited from giving to them the support and assistance of British credit and British property. 7. The steps which His Majesty's Government are taking under the above-mentioned Act are not confined to the United States of America; the policy is being pursued in all neutral countries. Nay, more. With the full consent of the Allied Governments, firms, even in Allied countries, are being placed on the statutory list if they are firms with whom it is necessary to prevent British subjects from trading. These considerations may, perhaps, serve to convince the Government of the United States that the measures now being taken are not directed against neutral trade in general. Still less are they directed against American trade in particular; they are part of the general belligerent operations designed to weaken the enemy's resources. 8. I do not read your note of the 28th July as maintaining that His Majesty's Government are obliged by any rule of international law to give to those who are actively assisting the cause of their enemies, whether they be established in neutral or in enemy territory, the facilities which flow from participation in British commerce. Any such proposition would be so manifestly untenable that there is no reason to refute it. The feelings which I venture to think have prompted the note under reply must have been that the measures which we have been obliged to take will be expanded to an extent which will result in their interfering with genuine neutral commerce; perhaps, also, that they are not exclusively designed for belligerent purposes, but are rather an attempt to forward our own trade interests at the expense of neutral commerce, under the cloak of belligerency ; and, lastly, that they are, from a military point of view, unnecessary. 9. Upon these points I am able to give to the Government and people of the United States the fullest assurances. Upon the first point it is true, as your note says, that the name of a firm may be added to the statutory list of persons with whom British persons may not trade whenever, on account of the enemy association of such firm, it seems expedient to do so. But the Government of the United States can feel confident that this system of prohibitions will not be carried further than is absolutely necessary. It has been forced upon us by the circumstances of the present war. To extend it beyond what is required in order to secure its immediate purpose the weakening of |