THE LANSING PAPERS, 1914-1920, VOLUME I



                             [Enclosure]
Memorandumr   by the Counselor for the Department of State
  (Lansing) on the British Order in Council of March 11, 1915

                                 [WASHINGTON,] March 20, 1915.
  QUERY. Why did not the British Government proclaim a blockade
of German ports and notify neutral governments of that action?
  I think the answer to this query is to be found in the fact that the
British Government by their Order in Council of October 29, 1914,52
put in operation during the present war the Declaration of London
with certain modifications and directed the British Courts to apply
its provisions thus modified.
  The modifications made by the Order in Council in no way affected
the rules laid down in the Declaration covering the subject of
blockade.
  Articles 1, 18 and 19 of the Declaration read as follows:

                            ARTICLE 1

  A blockade must not extend beyond the ports and coasts belonging
to or occupied by the enemy.

                           ARTicuE 18

  The blockading forces must not bar access to neutral ports or
coasts.
                            ARmncuE 19

  Whatever may be the ulterior destination of a vessel or of her
cargo, she cannot be captured for breach of blockade, if, at the
moment, she is on her way to a non-blockaded port.
  Manifestly these provisions of the Declaration are directly at
variance with the procedure authorized by the Order in Council of
March 15, 1915.63
  To have announced a blockade as extensive in effect as the opera-
tions contemplated in the Order in Council of March 15th would
have compelled the further modification of the Declaration of Lon-
don by striking out the three articles quoted. So radical a change
in the accepted theory of a blockade would undoubtedly have aroused
general criticism by neutral governments and would have been em-
barrassing for the British Government to defend.
  To avoid placing themselves in so different [difcult?] a position
diplomatically the British Government issued the Order in Council

  "Foreign Relation8, 1914, supp., p. 262.
  53i. e., the Order in Council dated March 11, 1915 (ibid., 1915, supp.,
p. 144).
It is frequently referred to as the Order in Council of March 15, 1915, the
date
on which it was made public.



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