POINTS OF LAW

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 October 1939, Page 6

POINTS OF LAW

UNITED STATES DEMAND FOR RELEASE OF CITY OF FLINT. MR HULL’S EXPLANATION. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received This Day, Noon). WASHINGTON, October 26. Mr Cordell Hull (Secretary of State), explained that the demand which had beeen presented through the Ambassador to Russia for the return of the City of Flint was based on the United States’ conception of the items of international law involved—namely the Supreme Court’s decision in the Appam case, in which a vessel sent to an American port by the German raider Moewe in 1916 was ordered to be released, and on Article 21 of the 1907 Hague Convention, under which a prize ship could be taken to a neutral port only in the event of exceptional circumstances, like a breakdown, after which it must be released when repaired. Mr Hull said he was without definite information that the City of Flint entered Murmansk for repairs. An American representative in Moscow is being sent to Murmansk to determine the facts. Mr Hull intimated that representations were also being made to Berlin for the release of the City of Flint and reiterated his conviction that the cargo was under 50 per cent contraband, so that there was no right, under international law, to confiscate the cargo.