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Show WILL NOT CONSIDER RIGHTSHUTRAL EFFORTS OF AMERICANS TO RAISE EMBARGO ON FOOD PROVES A FAILURE. Government Had Asked That Radius of Activity be Defined and That Attacks on Merchant Ships be Abandoned. Washington. Six diplomatic notes were made public Wednesday night by the state department, constituting the entire correspondence of the last few weeks between the United States and Germany and between the United States and Great Britain and France, relative to the abandonment of submarine sub-marine attacks on merchant ships, the shipment of conditional contraband and foodstuffs to civilians in a belligerent bellig-erent country, the use of neutral flags by belligerent merchantmen, the removal re-moval of mines and the proclamation of a virtual blockade by the allies against Germany. The communications revealed .that the United States government, realizing realiz-ing the difficulties of maintaining an effective blockade by a close guard of an enemy coast on account of the newly new-ly developed activity of submarines, asked that "a radius of activity" be defined. Great Britain and France replied re-plied with the announcement that the operations of the blockade would not be conducted outside of European waters, including the Mediterranean. While Germany agreed, it is disclosed, dis-closed, to abandon her submarine attacks at-tacks on "mercantile of any flag" except ex-cept when they resist visit or search provided foodstuffs were permitted to reach her civilian population, Great Britain and her allies rejected the proposal, pro-posal, originally mad") by the United States government, in an effort to bring the belligerents into an arrangement arrange-ment which would safeguard the interests in-terests of the neutrals. Furthermore, the documents show that in a message of inquiry to Great Britain and France it was asked whether the embargo on all commerce between Germany and neutral countries coun-tries was to be carried out under the rules of a blockade, or by interference with ships and caries "as if no blockade block-ade existed." The two together presented, pre-sented, in the view oC the American government, "a proposed course of action previously unknown to international interna-tional law." -The answers from both Great Britain Brit-ain and France reveal for the first time that tiie allies officially regard their policy as a "blockade," but desire to retrain from exercising the rights of belligerents under a blockado to confiscate ships and cargoes as a penalty pen-alty for breach of blockade, substituting substitut-ing fur it procedure in prize courts and compensation through sale of the detained merchandise. The definition of a "radius of activity" activ-ity" for the allied fleet in European waters, including the Mediterranean, is the first intimation of the geographical geograph-ical limits of the blockade. Its limits were not given more exactly, the allies claim, because Germany was equally indefinite in proclaiming all the waters surrounding Great Britain and Ireland a "war zone." |