File No. 763.72111/1304
The Chilean Ministry for Foreign Affairs to the Chilean Embassy at Washington1
[Received in the Department of StateDecember 22, 1914.]
[Telegram]
The following supreme decree has been issued and is to be communicated to the American Government:
Whereas the Convention XIII of The Hague, relating to the rights and duties of neutral powers in the event of war, establishes in Article 19 that belligerent warships may supply themselves with fuel in neutral ports to an extent sufficient to enable them to reach the nearest port of their country, and adds in Article 20 that the said warships may not renew their supply of fuel in a port of the same power before the lapse of three months; and
Whereas this and other dispositions of the convention cited manifest the primary purpose of preventing neutral powers from cooperating directly or indirectly in the action of belligerents and of removing warships from neutral ports by allowing them only such elements as are necessary to enable them to reach the coast of the country to which they belong; and
Whereas the application of these rules in the ports of the Republic is producing results clearly contrary to the spirit of all the dispositions of the said convention, because owing to the great distance between our coasts and the belligerent countries the supply of coal furnishable to their warships is very considerable, and because the said warships have profited by this facility to continue their warlike operations in American waters instead of proceeding to the coast of their own country; and
[Page 705]Whereas the dispositions cited thus tend in practice to encourage naval warfare in the Pacific, contrary to the desire and interests of Chile; and
Whereas for the same reason the consequences of the European conflict are becoming more serious in our country, since in addition to the disturbance of her international commerce and her economic and industrial life she must endure the anxieties consequent upon the fulfilment of her duties as a neutral and upon the watching of our coast line, which absorb the energy of our maritime authority and entail upon the treasury expenditure of no inconsiderable magnitude; and
Whereas the said Convention XIII, in the fifth of the consideranda which precede its dispositions, reserves to the signatory countries the faculty of modifying their rules in the course of a war when experience acquired demonstrates the necessity of so doing in order to safeguard their rights; and WHEREAS the difficulties occasioned by the application of Article 19 would be greatly diminished if the rule regarding the delivery to warships of the coal necessary to enable them to reach a port of their nation were substituted by a rule to supply in every case no more fuel than may be sufficient to allow them to reach the nearest port of the nearest neutral country; and
Whereas the warships supplied to such limited extent could not venture upon warlike operations, save by running the risk of becoming motionless upon the high seas; and
Whereas the circumstance that our country is a producer of coal induces belligerent vessels to supply themselves with that fuel at our ports in preference to ports of countries which are not in the same position (a consideration which entails upon the Government of Chile more particularly the moral obligation to prevent the improper use in future of supplies of coal in her ports); and
Whereas it is necessary to adopt for cases of breach of neutrality by merchant vessels a penalty which by its severity shall oblige the shipping companies to take a direct interest in the strict fulfilment of the rules prescribed by the Government and also necessary to decide upon some measure for the diminution as far as possible of the burden imposed upon the state by the necessity of watching the vessels interned at ports of the Republic for violations of neutrality or voluntarily detained by their owners.
I DECREE:
Firstly, that hereafter the supplies of coal which may be furnished to warships of the belligerent nations at Chilean ports shall be reduced to the quantity necessary to enable them to reach the nearest coaling-port of the neighboring nation;
Secondly, that in the event of the violation by a merchant ship of any of the rules bearing upon the observance of neutrality, adopted by the Government of the Republic, no fuel shall be supplied in Chilean ports to any vessel of the company to which the ship so offending may belong;
Thirdly, that the vessels interned by order of the Government by reason of violation of neutrality and also those whose owners state their intention to maintain them in Chilean ports until the end of the war, shall be concentrated in such Chilean ports as in each case the administrative authorities may determine;
Fourthly, that the quantity of coal that may be supplied in ports of the Republic to merchant vessels be limited to the capacity of their ordinary hunkers, unless they desire to sail direct to European ports, in which case they may be supplied with the quantity of coal necessary for the voyage, provided always that the company to which they may belong furnish a sufficient guarantee in the opinion of the Government that the fuel shall be used exclusively in effecting such voyage.
The foregoing dispositions shall apply throughout the territory of the Republic reckoning from the first day of January next.
Let it be noted, communicated, published and inserted in the Boletín de las Leyes y Decretos del Gobierno.
- Communicated to the Department of State by Manuel Salinas, Secretary of Embassy.↩