A.— 4

126

Ith Day.] Declaration of London. [2 June, 1911. Genera] BOTHA— cont. past. I only desire to take this opportunity of stating that the Union of South Africa claims this to be a sound principle which must be recognised in the best interests of the whole Empire, and I have heard with great pleasure what Sir Edward Grey has said on this matter. We are now invited to express our regret that the Dominions were not consulted prior to the acceptance by the British delegates of the terms of the Declaration of London, and I beg to state at once that I would not feel justified in supporting such a resolution. I feel quite satisfied with the explanation in regard to this point as given by Sir Edward Grey, and I am sure that all my colleagues will agree with me that it would not be fair to us to pass this part of the resolution as it stands. It seems to me that international agreements which provide for an impartial court of appeal from prize courts, and for a code of rules establishing uniformity on questions connected with maritime war, in respect of which there is at present so much divergency, must be of immense advantage to neutral Powers. I would myself, therefore, be most unwilling to give a vote against the ratification of this Declaration, especially when I remember that His Majesty's Government have done everything they can to induce foreign Governments to agree to an International Prize Court and to a code of international rules, in respect of which all the Powers have made some concessions. It appears to me that a non-ratification of the Declaration would be a great blow to future negotiations for international agreements. At the same time, notwithstanding these weighty considerations, if I am persuaded that this Declaration vitally injures the interests of Great Britain I would not hesitate to give my vote against its ratification. I now come to the second part of this resolution. It is not my intention to attempt even to grapple with all the extremely difficult and intricate problems which are connected with this Declaration. It is not for me to discuss here whether it is on the whole to the advantage or otherwise of the United Kingdom to ratify this agreement, and I shall endeavour to confine myself more particularly to the point of view of the Dominions, and more especially of the L T nion of South Africa. If I may be allowed to do so, I should, however, only like to say this, that after having carefully considered the pros and cons of the Declaration of London I have come to the conclusion that the balance of advantage is greatly in favour of ratification by Great Britain. Objection is taken in the resolution to the inclusion of foodstuffs in Article 24 of the Declaration, which gives a list of conditional contraband articles, the contention no doubt being that foodstuffs should be included in the free list under Article 28. It appears, however, that, notwithstanding the persistent efforts of His Majesty's Government, some of the maritime Powers are opposed to this, and therefore it is at least gratifying that foodstuffs can never be made absolute contraband, as they can now, by any belligerent Power which chooses to do so. I know it is said that no European nation ever would make foodstuffs absolute contraband, but this statement is certainly not borne out by the correspondence, which I have read in the White Papers presented to both Houses of Parliament, between His Majesty's Government and the Erench Government in 1885, and between His Majesty's Government and the Russian Government during the war between Russia and Japan. The strongest attack against the Declaration of London has been directed against this particular Article 24. It has been argued that the food supply of Great Britain will be seriously endangered in time of war by the inclusion of foodstuffs in this article, and I have endeavoured to ascertain, after a careful study of the Declaration, how that part of the Empire which I have the honour to represent would probably be affected by the clauses dealing with questions of conditional contraband. But what is the position when Great Britain is a neutral ? It seems to me that there can be no doubt that British commerce and shipping all over the world should welcome the provisions which define the articles which may be made absolute contraband, conditional contraband, and which in no circumstances can be treated as contraband, because more certainty will be established as to the conditions under which in time of war trade can be carried on, where at present there is no certainty whatever.

If the Declaration of London is ratified, traders and shipowners will be in a much better position to know what risks they run in carrying on their