The Secretary of State to Mr. James Harold Warner
Sir: The Department is in receipt of your letter of December 1, 1915, wherein inquiry is made as to the degree of protection this Government would afford to clients of yours in the event of their purchase of ships belonging to belligerent countries and now in ports of the United States.
This Government recognizes the validity of a transfer of an enemy vessel to a neutral flag after the outbreak of hostilities, where the transfer is unconditional and is bona fide. But the nations of the world are not all in agreement respecting this question; and the Department is not able to state precisely the position of the several governments now at war.
In this relation, the Department may call your attention to the right of belligerents under international law to visit and search merchantmen for the purpose of ascertaining whether they belong to the merchant marine of neutrals and if so whether they are attempting to break a blockade or carry contraband or render unneutral service to the enemy. It seems possible that in connection with the exercise of this right an examination might be made in a given case into the validity of the transfer of a vessel belonging to a belligerent nation made during the existence of war.
You will doubtless appreciate the possibility of complications arising out of the purchase of the vessels referred to in your letter which might result in serious financial loss to the purchasers.
The Department is unable to determine what, if any, assistance could be rendered in the matter referred to in your letter until there is presented for consideration a concrete case in connection with which assistance is desired.
In this connection the Department may observe that, by order in council, dated October 20, 1915, the British Government ordered that Article 57 of the Declaration of London, which provided that the neutral or enemy character of a vessel was to be determined by the flag which the vessel was entitled to fly, should no longer be put in [Page 697] force, and that the British Prize Court would apply in lieu of that article the rules and principles formerly observed by those courts. The French Government has taken similar action.
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