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Show WILL NOT ENDURE SEIZURESOF MAILS UNITED STATES NOTIFIES ENGLAND ENG-LAND AND FRANCE THAT LAWLESS LAW-LESS PRACTICES MUST STOP. In Note Couched in Vigorous Terms the Entente Powers Are Warned That Only Radical Change Will Satisfy Americans Washington. The United States, denouncing interference with neutral mails, has notified Great Britain and France that it can no longer tolerate the wrongs which American citizens have suffered and continue to suffer through the "lawless practice" those governments have indulged In, and that only a radical change in policy, restoring the United States to its full rights as a neutral power, will be satisfactory. sat-isfactory. This notification is given in the latest lat-est American communication to the two governments, the text of which was made public by the state department depart-ment May 27. The time in which the change must be effected is not speci-bed, speci-bed, but the United States expects prompt action. "Onerous and vexatious" abuses which have been perpetrated by the British and French governments in seizing and censoring neutral mails are recited in the communication, and answers are made to the legal arguments argu-ments contained in the reply of the entente governments to the first American note on the subject. It is vigorously set forth that not only American commercial interests have been injured, but rights of property have been violated and the rules of international law and custom palpably palpa-bly disregarded. Notice Is served that the United States will soon press claims against the British and French governments for the losses which already al-ready have been, sustained. "The governments of the United States, Great Britain and France appear ap-pear to be in substantial agreement as to principle," the note says. "The method of applying the principle is the chief cause of difference. "The government of the United States must again insist wtih emphasis empha-sis that the British and French governments gov-ernments do not obtain rightful juris diction of ships by forcing or inducing them to visit their ports for the purpose pur-pose of seizing their mails, or thereby obtain greater belligerent rights as to such ships than they could exercise on the high seas; for there Is, in the opinion of the government of the United States, ho legal distinction between be-tween the seizures of mails , at sea, which is announced as abandoned, and their seizure from vessels voluntarily volun-tarily or involuntarily in port. The British and French practice amounts to an unwarranted limitation of the use by neutrals of the world's highway high-way for the transmission of correspondence. corre-spondence. After detailing instances of damage suffered by Americans because of the detention of mails, the note concludes as follows: "The government of the United States and other neutral countries and ods employed by tho British and French authorities in interrupting mails passing between the United tSates and other neutral countries and between the United States and the enemies en-emies of Great Britain, can no longer tolerate the wrongs which citizens of the United States suffer and continue to suffer through these methods. To submit to a lawless practice of this character would open the door to repeated re-peated violations of international law by the belligerent powers on the ground of military necessity of whlcfc the violator would be the sole judge. Manifestly a neutral nation cannot permit ita' rights on the high seas to be determined by the belligerents or the exercise of those rights to be permitted per-mitted or denied arbitrarily by the government of a warring nation. The rights of neutrals are as sacred as the rights of the belligerents and -must ba as strictly observed. "The government of the United States, confident in the regard for international in-ternational law and the rights of neutrals which the British and French governments have so often proclaimed and the disregard of which they have urged so vigorously against their enemies en-emies in the -present war, expects the present practice of the British and French authorities in the treatment of mails from or to the United States to' cease and belligerent rights, as exercised, exer-cised, to conform to the principle governing gov-erning the passage of mail matter and to the recognized practice of nations. Only a radical change in the present British and French policy, restoring to the United States its full rights as a neutral power, will satisfy this government." |