File No. 341.115Am319/258
[Enclosure]
The British Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs (Grey) to
the American Chargé (Laughlin)
No. 176653/X
London,
September 18, 1916
.
Sir: 1. I have the honour to
acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 4th instant, in
which you refer to one which I had the honour to address to Mr.
Page on May 31st
last, in reply to his of the 20th of the same month, and in
which you inform me that you have been instructed by your
Government to point out that my answer does not seem to them
responsive to the representations made.
2. In the note referred to, Mr. Page stated in effect that the placing of the
names of certain vessels, belonging to the American
Transatlantic Company, on the “black list” rendered it difficult
for them to obtain cargoes and therefore “appeared to bring
about the result of depriving their owners of those benefits
which it was expected would follow as a consequence of the
undertaking on the part of His Majesty’s Government not to seize
the company’s ships.”
3. In reply, I pointed out that the “undertaking” given by His
Majesty’s Government in December last was strictly limited to a
promise not to exercise their right of capture, in regard to the
vessels in question, pending a decision in the test cases then
before the prize court, to which I should perhaps have added
that even this concession was subordinated to certain
conditions; it certainly could not be interpreted in such a way
as to make it imply a promise to extend to the vessels of the
American Transatlantic Company the special privileges or
facilities which are accorded to those neutral vessels whose
owners have accepted certain well-understood conditions.
4. As I have recently had the honour of explaining to you, in my
note of the 11th instant, what is called the “ships’ white list”
consists of an enumeration of the vessels, the owners of which
have accepted those conditions. On the other hand the “ships’
black list” referred to in your note and that of Mr. Page, comprises the names of
vessels to which, on account either of the refusal of their
owners to accept the required conditions or of some other
sufficient reason (such for instance as known enemy trading, or
enemy interest in their ownership), it is considered undesirable
that the special privileges or facilities referred to should be
accorded.
If the public attention which has been drawn to the somewhat
exceptional circumstances connected with the transfer of the
vessels in question to the American flag has had for one of its
results, as would appear from your note now under reply, that
shippers in America are unwilling to entrust them with cargoes,
that is clearly not a circumstance with which His Majesty’s
Government have any concern.
I have [etc.]
For the Secretary of State:
W. Langley
