Office of the Historian

File No. 500.A2a/571.

The American Ambassador to Germany to the Secretary of State.

[Extract.]
American Embassy,
Berlin, December 29, 1910.
No. 871.]

Sir: With reference to your instruction of October 26 last, No. 479,3 on the subject of the signing of the additional protocol to the International Prize Court Convention, I have the honor to transmit herewith enclosed copies, with translations, of two foreign office notes which I have lately received4 in reply to the communication I hastened to make to the secretary of state for foreign affairs in pursuance of your instructions.

The first note states that the Imperial German Government concurs in the view of the Government of the United States of America that concerted action by the diplomatic representatives of Germany, the United States, France, and Great Britain is the most effective method of influencing the signatory powers of the Prize Court Convention, which have not yet signed the additional protocol, to accept the same, and that the imperial representatives have accordingly received the same instructions as were issued to the representatives of the United States.

In the opinion of the German Government it is considered possible that there may exist objections to the acceptance of the Additional Protocol arising from the apprehension that obligation to ratify the Prize Court Convention might be construed from the signing of this protocol, and that in consideration thereof it would be advisable to cause it to be pointed out to the Governments in question by the representatives of the four powers that no such obligation is incurred, as a matter of course, inasmuch as the signing of the protocol would have no broader import than the signing of the Prize Court Convention had at the time. Therefore those Governments which have not reached a decision as yet in regard to the ratification of the convention would also be able to sign the protocol without objection. The Imperial representatives have been furnished with instructions to this effect.

I have, etc.,

David J. Hill.
  1. See Foreign Relations, 1910, p. 635. (No. 1409 to Great Britain.)↩
  2. Not printed.↩