Laying Mines.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 7, 26 August 1914, Page 2

Laying Mines.

Denmark's reported protest against the sowing of international waters with contact mines is supported to some extent by international law. The Hague Convention,' with its counsel of perfection, has dealt with the subject of mine laying by the Bth Convention of 1907, which reads as follows: It is forbidden:

(1) To lay unanchored automatic contact" mines, unless they are so constructed as to become harmless one hour at most after the person who laid them shall have lost control over them. (2) To lay anchored automatic contact mines, which do not become harmless as soon as they have broken their moorings. To use torpedos which do not become harmless when they have missed their mark. y.' Article 2.—lt is forbidden to lay automatic contact-mines off the coasts and ports of the enemy, -with the sole object of intercepting' commercial shipping. Article'2.-—When anchored, automatic contact-mines are employed, all possible precautions ought to be taken for the security of peaceful shipping.

The belligerents undertake to provide, as far as possible, that these mines shall become harmless after a limited time has elapsed, and, in the case where they cease to be under observation, to notify the danger zones, as soon as military exigencies permit, by a notice to shipping, which must also be communicated to the Governments through the diplomatic channel.' Article 4 refers to neutral Powers. Article s.—At the close of the war the contracting Powers undertake to do all that lies in their power | td' remove the mines which they have laid, each removing its own mines. As regards anchored auto- ( matic contact-mines laid by of the belligerents' off the coasts of the other, their position must ' be' notified''to the other party by the Pbwer which laid them, and each Power must proceed with the least possible delay to remove the j mines in its own waters.

One would suppose that these articles represent the bare minimum of restraint on belligerents, but Article 6 comes along and largely cancels even the tenuous protection of the previous articles. By it "the contracting Powers which do not at present own perfected mines of the description contemplated in the present Convention," merely undertake to convert their mines to the required standard as soon as possible, thereby impliedly retaining the right to ignore these rules until such conversion takes place—as soon as possible being a polite synonym for !the Grecian Kalends.

To add to the horrors of war, both Germany and France have reserved their consent to Article 2, and the effect of this, of course, is that any nation that has for an enemy either of these-great Powers—and it is diffcult to imagine a big war without one of them as a belligerent—even though it has given in its adhesion to th£! Convention is released from either of them. The standard of humanity is thereby lowered to that of the most ruthless. WMat would one think of an army that laid contact mines on the highways leading' to an. undefended city, by which defenceless women and children suffered an awful death. Seeing that the ocean is Britain's highway, the laying 1 of contact mines for' the destruction of commercial shipping is a precise parallel. The regrettable part of unrestrained cruelty, under the guise of absolute military necessity, is that there is almost unavoidably a tendency on the part of the injured party to retaliate in kind. If all the allies of the Entente make a point of sinking all mine-laying vessels of the enemy, this stern but necessary action may operate as a deterrent where I ■ considerations of humanity and national decency are powerless. Great Britain; anxious to accept any-; thing, which marks a step in the right direction, at the same time formally' declared "that the mere fact that this ' convention does not prohibt a particular act : of proceeding,'must not be held to debar his Britannic Majesty's Government from contesting its legitimacy." The contention of Great Bri- ; tain is that belligerents should be prohibited from using unanchored.ij mines at all, and also anchored mines except in their own or the enemy's < territorial waters; and within ten miles,jj of their fortified forts. If as the p&L suit of Germany's action, there occurs, tj some' calamity to the United States, (l mercantile marine comparable to the Titanic disaster, one ventures to say that Washington will speak in no uncertain terms, and, if necessary, back up its representations with the only argument that the "outer peoples" recognise—and we may yet see the" armadas of the New World take station by the battle fleets of Britain. '