The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-05-27


 and French practice amounts to an un- warranted limitation on the use by neutrals of the worlds highway for the transmission of spondence. The practice actually followed by the allied powers must be said to justify the con clusion, therefore, that the announce ment of February 15 was merely notice that one illegal practice had been aban
 doned to make place for the develop
 ment of another more onerous and veX- atious in character.
 VIOLATION OF HAGUE
 "The present practice is a violation not only the spirit of the announce ment of February 15, but of the rule of The Hague convention upon which it lis concededly based Aside from this it is a violation of the prior practice of nations which Great Britain and her allies have in the past assisted to es- tablish and maintain, notwithstanding the statement in the memorandum as late as 1907 that letters and dispatches themselves could be seized and con fiscated.'
 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 molesting the mails intended for international inland points. During the AIlGIlcdH CIVIL Wdl I>Oiu lNuSSCl Cll-
 deavored to induce the United States to
 concede that her majesty's malls on
 board a private vessel should be ex-
 empted from visitation or detention. This
 exemption of mails was urged in Octo-
 Der, 1862, in the case of British mails on
 board the Adela. On October 31 Secre-
 tary Seward announced that public
 mails of any friendly neutral power
 Guly certified or authenticated as such
 ha nr bi1t ba
 put as speedily as may be convenient on
 the way to their designa ted destination
 Tn accordance with this announcement
 the government of the United States in
 the case of the British steamer Peter
 hoff which had been seized, with her
 mails against the protest of her majes- tvs government had her mails forwarded to destination unopened. The same rule was followed by France, I am ad- vised, in the Franco Prussian war of 1870; by the United States Tn the Span ish- American war of 1898; by Great Britain in the South African war, in the case of the German mail steamers Bundsrath and General; by Japan and substantially by Russia in the Russo Japanese war of 1904. And even in the pres ent war, as the memora ndum of Great Britain and France states, their enemy, Germany has desisted from the practice of interfering with neutral mails, even on board belligerent steamers. This is | Illustrated by the case of the French steamer F'loride, captured by the auxil- | iary cruiser Prinz Eitel Friederch, cited 1 by the British and French governments 1 in support of their argument regarding parcel mails In this case the letter mails of the Floride, amounting to IA sacks, were forwarded to their destina- <, tion by the commander at the nrsr op- rortunity upon arriving in the United States. It would seem. therefore, to be conclusively established that the inter- ferences with mails of which this gov ernment justly complains are wrong in principle and in practice"
 VALUABLE PAPERS LOST
 "rThe arbitrary methods employed by
 the British and French governments have
 resulted most disastrously to citizens of
 the United States. Important papers
 which can never be duplicated, or can be
 duplicated only with great difficulty, such
 as United States patents for inventions
 rare documents, legal papers relating to the settlement of estates, powers of at
 torney, fire insurance claims, income tax
 returns and similar matters have been lost Delays in receiving shipping doc uments have caused great loss and in convenience by preventing prompt de- livery of goods. In the case of the Mac niff Horticultural company of New York large shipments of plants and bulbs from Holland were, I am informed frozen on the wharves because possession could not be obtained in the absence of documents relating to them which had been re-
 moved from the New Amsterdam, Oost- erdyk and Rotterdam. Business oppor-
 tunities are lost by failure to transmit promptly bids, specifications and con- tracts The Standard Underground Ca ble company of Pittsburg, for example, sent by mail a tender and specification for certain proposed electrical works to be constructed at Christania; after sev-
 eral weeks of waiting. the papers having failed to arrive, the American company
 was told that the bids could not be longer
 held open and the contract was awarded to a British competitor. Checks, drafts
 money orders, securities and similar prop erty are lost or detained for weeks and
 months. Business correspondence reat- ing to the legitimate and bona fide trade between neutral countries. correspondence of personal nature, and also certain of ficial correspondence, such as money or der lists and other matters forwarded by
 government departments are detained,
 lost or possibly destroyed. For instance, the Postmaster General informs me that certain international money order lists from the United States to Germany Greece and other countries and from Germany to the United States sent through the mails, have not reached their destination, though dispatched several months ago. It was necessary to have some of these lists duplicated and again dispatched by the steamer Frederick VIII. which sailed from New York on April 19. and from which all the mails intended for Germany have been taken and held ir British Jurisdiction.
 FURTHER EXAMPLE
 "As further example of the delay and loss consequent upon the British practice. the Postmaster General also sends me copy of a letter from the British postal administration admitting that the mails were removed from the steamer Medan in the Downs on Janu- ary 30 last, and not forwarded until sometime between the 2d of February and the 2d of March, and that 1892 bags of these mails were lost during trans mission to Holland on the 26th day of February by the Dutch steamer Meek lenburg.' The Medan arrived safely
 at Rotterdam day or two after she left the Downs. Numerous complaints smi- liar to the foregoing have been received by this government, the details of which are available, but I believe I have cited sufficient facts to show the unprecedented and vexatious nature of the interference with mails persisted in by British and French autho oAities. Not only are American commercial interests injured but rights of property are vio- lated and the rules of international law | and customs are palpably disregarded. l I can only add that this continuing offense had led to such losses to Amer l ican citizens and to a possible respon-