Note 44 — II THE NEUTRAL MERCHANT AND THE ‘FREEDOM OF THE SEA’

As an illustration of the scrupulous exactitude of the appeal to principles by President Wilson in his recent Notes to Germany, I may refer to the distinction he draws in the Note of June 11, between the duty of a neutral Government to enforce its own laws in regard to granting clearances to vessels carrying cargo prohibited by those laws, and the grant of clearances to vessels carrying contraband of war: ‘Performing its recognised duty as a neutral Power and enforcing its natural laws, it was its [i.e. the Government of the United States] duty to see to it that the Lusitania was not armed for offensive action, that she was not serving as a transport, that she did not carry cargo prohibited by the statutes of the United States, and that if, in fact, she was a naval vessel of Great Britain she should not receive clearance as a merchantman. It performed that duty. It enforced its statutes with scrupulous vigilance through its regularly constituted officials....’ The performance of these express duties is treated as distinct from the contention of the German Government that the carriage of contraband of war was a violation of American law.