The Climax-Madisonian. (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1914-1917, 1915-11-10
Wilson RefuteS the
English Claims.
new NOTE MADE PUBLIC
British Interference With Amer
lean Trade Denounced.
CHAMPIONS NEUTRAL RIGHTS

American Government, the Note De-
clares, Can Not Submit to curtaiI-
ment of Its Rights by Measures
Which Are Retaliatory, and 1t In
sists That Relations Between the
United States and Great Britain Be
Governed by Established Rules of
international Law.
Washington, Nov. S.-The long
awaited note to Great Britain on Brit
ish practices interfering with Ameri-
can trade has been made public. In
it the United States serves notice on
Great Britain:
1. That it does not recognize as
legal and effective the British block
ade of Germeny and Austria-H Hungary.
2. That it can not submit" to cur
tailment of its neutral rights by meas
ures which are admittedly retaliatory
and therefore illegal"
3. That it must insist" that the
relations between it and the British
government be governed not by a pol
icy of expediency but by established
rules of international law.
4. That it unhesitatingly assumes
the task of championing the integrity
of neutral rights and will devote its
energies to that end.
The note as a whole is a vigorous
denunciation of the British govern
ment for the illegality' of its measures
in regard to neutral shipping. with
out Justification Ineffective "ille-
gal," "indefensible" and in violation
of the law of nations" are some of
this governments characterizations of
tie British practices.
Champion of Neutral Rights.
In this note the United States ac-
cepts even more frankly than in the
controversy with Germany the role of
champion of neutral rights in the
present war. Secretary Lansing says:
''It is of the highest Importance to
neutrals, not only of~the present day
but of the future, that the principles
of international right be maintained
Unimpaired. This task of champion
ing the integrity of neutral rights
which have received the sanction of
the civilized world against the law
less conduct of belligerents arising
out of the great conflict which is now
wasting the countries of Europe, the
United States unhesitatingly as
sumes and to the accomplishment of
that task it will devote it's energies,
exercising always that impartiality
which from the outbreak of the war
1t has sought to exercise in its rela-
tons with the warning nations"
The British government is sum-
moned to obedience of international
law in the sentence, regarded here as
the strongest in the note: ''The gov
ernment of the United States de-
sires to impress most earnestly upon
his majesty's government that it must
insist that the relations between it
and his majesty's government be gov
erned not by policy of expediency
but by those established rules of inter
national conduct upon which Great
Britain, in the past, has held the Unit
ed States to account when the latter
nation was a belligerent engaged in a
struggle for national existence"
Causes For Protest.
The note groups the causes for pro-
test by the United States under three
heads. Under these are covered all
the acts which are held to have in
fringed upon American trade rights.
The three groups of offenses are:
First. the seizure and detention of
vessels on. the high seas on mere sus-
l.icion; second, the so called blockade
policy: third, the unsatisfactory and
unacceptable character of the regula-
tions governing and the procedure of
British prize courts.
The American protest on these
three grounds of complaint is sum-
married in the note as follows:
Il believe it has been conclusively
shown that the methods sought to be
employed by Great Britain to obtain
and use evidence of enemy destina-
tion of cargoes bound for neutral
ports and to impose a contraband
character upon such cargoes are with
out justification; that the blockade,
upon which such methods are partly
founded, is ineffective, illegal and fn-
cefensible; that the judicial proceed
ure offered as means fer reparation
for an international injury is inhe-
rently defective for the purpose. and
that in many cases jurisdiction is as
serted in violation OF the law Of ma
tions."