SEARCH AT SEA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 November 1939, Page 5

SEARCH AT SEA

BELLIGERENT & NEUTRAL RIGHTS NEGOTIATIONS IN PROGRESS. BRITAIN TRYING TO MINIMISE INCONVENIENCE. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, November 14. In this war Britain must exercise to the full her recognised belligerent rights. The British Government has, however, pledged itself to seek to do so with as little inconvenience as possible to neutrals’ rights, which it is intended to respect. It is with the reconciliation in practice of those guiding principles that the negotiations which are proceeding between the British Government and various neutral Governments are concerned. Furthermore the British contraband committee is doing its utmost to see that contraband control functions with the maximum of efficiency which at the same time ensures the minimum of inconvenience to neutral shipping. There is no sign of a disposition in any neutral country to dispute or evade the belligerent right of visit and search, than which no belligerent right is better established in international law. This right of examining cargo of a contraband nature destined directly or ultimately for the enemy has been so fully conceded through history that international law gives it additional authority by allowing to a belligerent the use of force to compel neutral ships to submit to visit and search. While the principle remains today the same as that applied in the Napoleonic Wars, the changing conditions of ocean transport have necessitated deviations from the earlier practice. The size of modern ships and their cargoes has rendered impossible examination at sea. and it became inevitable that neutral ships should be required to visit voluntary control bases for the purpose of search. For the same reason examination involves ' greater delays than in former times, but the system of contraband control instituted by the British Government in the last war and renewed in the present conflict is designed to enable the authorities, with the co-op-eration of neutral shipowners, to reduce unavoidable delay to the very minimum. Guarantees that a cargo will not be transported to the enemy may be given by competent neutral authorities. For example, all cereals imported by BeL giurn are guaranteed by the Belgian Government not to be re-exported to Germany. Such an arrangement contributes toward a great saving of time for neutral ships.