the
prize rules of Germany, France, and Japan, in support of that
principle. In addition, "so strictly has this principle been enforced
in the past that in the Crimean War the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council on appeal laid down that if belligerents themselves
trade with blockaded ports they cannot be regarded as effectively
blockaded. (The Franciska, Moore, P. C. 56). This decision has
special significance at the present time since it is a matter of
common knowledge that Great Britain exports and reexports large
quantities of merchandise to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland,
whose ports, so far as American commerce is concerned, she regards as
blockaded."

Finally, the law of nations forbade the blockade of neutral ports in
time of war. The Declaration of London specifically stated that "the
blockading forces must not bar access to neutral ports or coasts."
This pronouncement the American Government considered a correct
statement of the universally accepted law as it existed to-day and
prior to the Declaration of London. Though not regarded as binding
upon the signatories because not ratified by them, the Declaration of
London, the American note pointed out, had been expressly adopted by
the British Government, without modification as to blockade, in the
Order in Council of October 9, 1914. More than that, Secretary Lansing
recalled the views of the British Government "founded on the decisions
of the British Courts," as expressed by Sir Edward Grey in instructing
the British delegates to the conference which formulated the
Declaration of London, and which had assembled in that city on the
British Government's invitation in 1907. These views were:

"A blockade must be confined to the ports and coast of the enemy, but
it may be instituted of one port or of several ports or of the whole
of the seaboard of the enemy. It may be instituted to prevent the
ingress only, or egress only, or both."

The United States Government therefore concluded that, measured by the
three universally conceded tests above set forth, the British policy
could not be regarded as constituting a blockade in law, in practice,
or in effect. So the British Government was notified that the American
Government declined to recognize such a "blockade" as legal.

Stress had been laid by Great Britain on the ruling of the Supreme
Court of the United States on the _Springbok_ case. The ruling was
that goods of contraband character, seized whil