The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1914. THE BRITISH WAY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 21, 11 September 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1914. THE BRITISH WAY.

A very important point which will conic up for consideration at the conclusion of the war is referred to by the Otago Daily Times in the course of an article in which the view expressed by the Minister lor Marino as to the immunity from confiscation of a number of the German vessels now under detention in Australasian ports is endorsed. "Article 2 of The Hague Convention. 191)7. provides," says Mr Fisher, who has been fortified by the advice of the Crown Law Office on the subject, "that, where an enemy merchant ship is, at the commencement of hostilities, in a British port, or has left its last port before the commencement of the war, and enters a British port in ignorance of hostilities, such ship may not be confiscated, but niay only be detained under an obligation of restoring it after the war, without indemnity." There are probably a dozen German vessels in Australian ports at the present time which arrived there in ignorance of the fact that Great Britain and Germany were at war and which have been detained. It would seem that, with the punctiliousness which, as the president of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce observes, the British always display in matters of international laws, these vessels will be restored to their owners after the war is over. It is only reasonable, however, that the observance of rules should be mutual. The Government which scrupulously conforms to the provisions of the Hague Convention in their relation to private property at sea should ai least look for a similarly scrupulous observance on the part of the enemy. Otherwise it deliberately penalises itI self. Now, The Hague Convention I allows a wider exemption of enemy vessels'from capture than that quoted by the Minister of Marine. In terms of it, immunity is granted by belligerents to enemy merchant ships which at the outbreak of war are on their way to one of their ports. This was the case with the New Zealand Shipping Company's steamer Kaipara, which, however, was captured and sunk by the Germans. Again. The Hague Convention grants immunity from capture of small vessels engaged in coast fisheries, provided they are in no wise made to serve the purposes of war. Yet the Germans have on more than one occasion sunk British trawling vessels. The truth is that there is no uniform international practice in respect of the treatment of private property at sea. While this is so, Great Britain handicaps herself by such a punctiliously strict observance of international law as would expose German ships detained in British harbours to

no substantially greater penalty than that which would ho incurred by them if they had sought a sanctuary in a neutral port.