MINES IN NEUTRAL WATERS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1291, 1 September 1914, Page 4

MINES IN NEUTRAL WATERS.

The Germans are continuing tiro questionable tactics of sowing floating mines in neutral waters to the danger of neutral shipping, as well ?is of British' and French war vessels. They are apparently (says the Melbourne Argus) tying them iu pairs, so as to make it more difficult to avoid them. A steamer striking the cable tethering two mines would bring one, or both smartly against her .sides. _ Tho percussion causes the explosion, which seldom fails to rend (be plates. A Norwegian trading steamer in Dutch waters has been sunk by mines; ami German ships, entering the Kattegat (Danish water) through the Kiel Canal, have laid a chain of mines there. The shortest distance from point to point in the Kattegat is about 30 miles,. A dozen pairs of mines, tethered, would leave little chance for ;v steamer going through the narrow strait in safety. This is the direct route to Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital. Concerning the legality of using mines, Dr T. E. Holland, then chichelo professor of international (aw, and vice-president of the. Institute dc Droit International, wrote to the Times iu 1904;—“No international usage sanctions tho employment by one belligerent against the other of mines or other secret contrivances which would without notice render dangerous the navigation of the high seas. No belligerent has ever asserted a right to do anything of the kind; and it may be in tho recollection of your readers that strong disapproval was expressed of a. design, erroneously attributed to tho United'States,- a few years since of of-' footing the blockade of certain Cuban ports by torpedoes instead of by a cruising squadron. These, it was pointed out, would superadd to the risk of capture and confiscation to which a- blockade runner is admittedly liable, the novel penalty of total destruction of the ship and, all on board.”