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WHO ARE THE HUNS?

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The "Submarine Blockade." 329<br />

of London, but so far as the essential points were concerned it<br />

has radically departed from these, despite the fact that its own<br />

representatives at the London Conference had recognized these<br />

provisions as valid in international law. The British Government<br />

places upon its list of contraband a number of articles which<br />

are not used or are only indirectly used for purposes of war,<br />

and which are therefore, by virtue of said Declaration of London,<br />

as well as by all the acknowledged laws of nations, not to be<br />

declared as contraband. The British Government has, moreover,<br />

actually obliterated the difference between absolute and<br />

relative contraband, in that all articles of relative contraband<br />

destined for Germany have been seized by it without regard<br />

to the port at which these goods were to be disembarked, and<br />

without regard to their peaceful or warlike use. It does not<br />

even scruple to violate the Declaration of Paris, since its naval<br />

forces have ventured to seize German non-contraband property<br />

even upon neutral ships.<br />

Exceeding its own regulations as embodied in the Declaration<br />

of London, the British Government seized German citizens<br />

liable for military duty and made them prisoners of war<br />

despite the fact that they were travelling on neutral ships.<br />

Finally it has declared the entire North Sea to be a zone of war,<br />

and if it has not made the free sea-passage of neutral vessels<br />

between Scotland and Norway impossible, it has made it<br />

endlessly difficult and dangerous. To a certain extent it has<br />

introduced a blockade of neutral coasts and neutral ports in<br />

contravention of all international law.<br />

All these measures have but one purpose—which is illegally<br />

to paralyze legitimate and neutral trade,—and to strike not only<br />

at the military operations but also at the commercial life of<br />

Germany, and finally by means of starvation to devote the<br />

entire German people to destruction.<br />

In the greater as well as the lesser issues of this question<br />

the neutral powers have submitted entirely to the measures<br />

undertaken by England. These powers have in particular<br />

failed in securing the release of German citizens and German<br />

goods taken from their vessels in contravention of the law.<br />

In certain directions they even accepted the dictates of England,<br />

irréconciliable as these are with the freedom of the seas, since

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