AMERICA AND THE BLOCKADE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1508, 10 February 1916, Page 2

AMERICA AND THE BLOCKADE.

One of America’s present grievances is that without declaring a blocade of Germany we have instituted a “ sort of blockade,” says United Empire. Now the Declaration of Paris ol 1856 (to which, by the way, America refused to be a party), declared that “ blockades in order to be obligatory must be effective.” This was always the Eaw of Nations. Because the “sort of blockade ” which was instituted by the British Order in Council of March n, 1915, is not, in the opinion of America, “ effective ” in the Baltic, the American Note states that it “ cannot be recognised as a legal blockade by the United States.” Assuming for a moment that the American Government is technically correct, we are entitled to remind Washington that the blocade of the Southern States declared by the American Government in 1862 was notoriously ineffective, as America then had practically no fleet to enforce it. This was well emphasised by the Times on November 8 last, in the following passage : “ Our searches of American ships, have, it seems, a deterrent effect upon American trade. Did not we suffer grievously from kindred injuries in the civil war-? Do Americans forget how they practically wiped out the whole trade of Eancashire and plunged its population into dire distress ? Did we complain ? No; their sufferings were acute, but the sympathies of the whole English democracy remained true to the North.” It is well to remind ourselves of these facts now. When England and America were at war in 1812, American ships sank all captured British ships, a wanton infringement of the accepted Eaw of Nations, which demands condemnation in a Prize Court before ships or cargoes can be forfeited. Any ' irregularities that our ships may have committed in this way are as nothing compared with those in the record of America as a belligerent. As a matter of fact, our “ sort of blockade ” is justified, as the Order in Council admits, on “an unquestionable right of retaliation.” It infringes no principle of the Eaw of Nations,