The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-05-27

highway for the transmission of cor respondence. The practice actually followed by the Allied Powers must be said to justify the conclusion there fore, that the announcement of Feb ruary 15 was merely notice that one illegal practice had been abandoned to make place for the development of another more onerous and vexa- tious in character
 t'The present practice is a viola tion, not only of the spirit of the an- nouncement of February 15, but of the rule of The Hague Convention, upon which it is concededly based. Aside from this, it is violation of the prior practice of nations which Great Britain and her Allies have in the past insisted to esta blish and maintain notwith standing the statement in the mem orandum that as late as 1907 the letters and despatches themselves could be seized and corif1scated.''
 During the war between the United States and Mexico the United States forces allowed British steamers to enter and depart from the port of Vera Cruz without noIesting the mails intended for inland points. Dur ing the American Civil War Lord Russell endeavored to induce the United States to concede that Her Majestys mails on board private vessel should be exempted from visi tation or detention
 This exemption of mails was urged in October, 1862, in the case of Brit ish mails on board the Adela. On Oct 31 Secretary Seward announced that public mail of any friendly or neutral power, duly certified or au- thenticated as such. shall not be searched or opened, but be put, as speedily as may be convenient, the way to their designated destination
 'tIn accordance with this announce ment, the government of the United States, in the case of the British steamship Peterhoff, which had been seized with her mails, against the protest of Her Majesty's government, had her mails forwarded to detina- ton unopened.
 Germans Good Example.
 The same rule was followed by France, as am advised, in the Fran co-Prussian war of 1870; by the United States in the Spanish-Ameri- can war of 1898, by Great Britain in the South African war, in the case of the German mail steamers Bundles rath and General; by Japan and sub stantially by Russia in the Russo Japanese war of 1904. And even in the present war, as the memorandum of Great Britain and France states, their enemy. Germany, has desisted from the practice of interfering with neutral mails, even on board belliger- ent steam CTS
 t@This is Illustrated by the case of the French steamer FIoride, captured by the auxiliary cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich, cited by the British and French governments in support of their argument regarding parcel mails. In this case the letter mails of the F1or1de, amounting to IA sacks were forwarded to their destination Ixr 7nT at tha tunity upon arriving in the United States. It would seem, therefore, to be conc1usive1y established that the interferences with mails of which this government justly complains are wrong in principle and in practice.
 teThe arbitrary methods employed by the British and French governments have resulted most disastrously to citizens of the United States. Inn portant papers which can never be duplicated, or can De duplicated only with great difficulty, such as United States patents for inventions, rare documents legal papers relating to the settlement of estates, powers of attorney, fire insurance claims. in come tax returns and similar matters, have been lost.
 Heavy Business Losses.
 Delays in receiving shipping docu- ments have, caused great loss and in convenience by preventing prompt de- livery of goods. In the case of the MacNif Horticultural Co.,. of New York, large shipments of plants and bulbs from Holland were, I am in formed frozen on the wharves be- cause possession could not be obtain ed in the absence of documents re- lating to them which had been re- moved from the New Amsterdam,