UNITED STATES NEUTRALITY
Sir Edward Grey.
Please see attached.
I should be so glad if you could see your way to making a strong stand against this. Even if we ultimately have to give way, the fact that they will have overruled our protest will, in the existing balance of public opinion in the United States, make them desirous of being helpful, or at any rate not unfriendly, on other points at issue.
Our case is clear. The Germans have announced their intention, have endeavoured on a large scale, and have partially begun, to arm merchant ships as commerce destroyers, and they even claim to carry out this process of arming and equipping in neutral harbours or on the high seas. We have been forced in consequence of this to arm a number of our ships in self-defence. In doing this we follow the undoubted law of the seas as it was practised in all the great wars of the past. We claim that by international law a merchant ship armed in her own defence, so long as she takes no aggressive action, is entitled to the full status of a peaceful trading ship. We ask that our ships so armed for this purpose shall be accorded that status in the neutral ports of the world. We are quite willing to agree that German merchant ships similarly armed in self-defence shall be similarly treated. It is only when merchant ships are armed and commissioned as auxiliary cruisers, not for purposes of self-defence, but for those of commerce destruction, that we claim they should be treated as ships of war. And here again we ask no better treatment for ourselves than for the enemy.
We recognise the natural difficulty to a neutral State, anxious to preserve a strict impartiality, of discerning whether ships carrying the same armament are intended for offensive or defensive action. We offer that this question should be decided by a simple and practical test. If the armed merchant ship is engaged in ordinary commerce, discharging and taking a regular cargo, and embarking passengers in the usual way, she should be counted as a trader in spite of her armament. If, on the other hand, she is not engaged in commerce, is not doing the ordinary things she would do and has done in times of peace, but is either carrying special cargoes of coal and stores to belligerent cruisers on the high seas, or is travelling in ballast, or is not trafficking in her cargo in the natural way, then we say she should be treated as a ship of war, even if the Government of the State whose flag she flies declares that she is only armed and will only fight in self-defence. We must therefore hold a neutral Government impeccable if she allows a German armed merchantman, which takes a regular cargo in the ordinary way, to arm in her ports or leave them for the high seas, even if subsequently that vessel engages not merely in self-defence, but in actual aggressive attack. Neutrals who deal with ships according to the ‘Cargo Test’ must be held blameless by us whatever the subsequent careers of the vessels may be. The issues which remain open after these ships have put to sea can only be decided between the belligerents.
The second point that I hope you will be able to fight is: no transference after the declaration of war of enemy’s ships to a neutral flag, as agreed upon in the Declaration of London. We cannot recognise such transferences, which are plainly, in the nature of things, designed to enable the transferred ship to obtain under the neutral flag an immunity from the conditions created by the war.
I would earnestly ask that both these points should be pressed now in the most direct and formal manner on Powers concerned, and particularly upon the United States, and that very great pressure should be exerted.
In this connection it may be pointed out that the United States have already allowed one or more ships, including the Kronprinz Wilhelm, to leave their ports armed, denuded of cargo, and cleared for action, and that to stop British ships of a self-defensive character is showing a partiality to one of the belligerents incompatible with fair and loyal neutrality. If to this is to be added the attempt which Mr. Bryan has made, by his personal intervention, to take over the Hamburg-American liners from Germany and run them under the American flag, it seems to me clear that a situation has arisen which, in the ultimate issues, ought, in some form or other, to be brought publicly before the people of the United States. I am under no illusions as to their attitude, but the forces at work there in the present circumstances are such as to make it impossible for any Government to load the dice against England, or go openly one inch beyond an even neutrality.
I venture to suggest to you that this position ought to be fought up to the point of full publicity, and by every means and influence at our disposal, before we are forced to consider the various inferior alternatives which no doubt exist.