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VDENEVE NEVE VU
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES
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00038
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Ref.:
CO 537/1374
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES
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restrictions. Further information is given in the enclosed Terms and Conditions of supply of National Archives' leaflet.
Please note that this copy is supplied subject to the National Archives' terms and conditions and that your use of it may be subject to copyright
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territory and the foreign nationals who transact business within such
tertory do so subject to the supremacy of that sovereignty. Such
acts of sovereignty within its territory do not infringe the Hague
Regulations, since Section III thereof is applicable only to the acts
of a belligerent occupant of a foreign territory.
The defendant invokes a part of the commentaries of Feilchen-
feld where it is said: "During the World War, civilians were not treated
as private individuals, but were interned as enemy aliens. Their proper-
ty, even assets entrusted for safekeeping, was sequestrated and that of
nationals of defeated states was for the most part finally acquired by the
victorious powers under the Versailles Treaty." It is not known what
was the kind of property mentioned in that passage. Moreover, such
property having been the subject matter of adjustment in a treaty of
peace, it is to be supposed that its consideration and disposition have
been inade in accordance with the law of nations or the laws of war.
They might have been considered as part of the war indemnity with the
conformity of the defeated nation which for its part, indemnified its
nationals who were affected. The case, however, is that no fact has
been cited from which it might be deduced that the Treaty of Versailles
had sanctioned the sequestering and disposition by the invader of
private property, and much loss of private credits. Upon the other
hand, the plaintiff cites the absolute annulment made in the provisions
of the said Treaty of Versailles (Clause 1. part 2 of Annex of Section
l, par. X) of all the measures of repression adopted by the Germans in
their economic decrees of September 18, 1914, February 17, 1915 and
August 29, 1916, and which had imposed the sequestration of all business
controlled by their enemies in Belgium. Plaintiff also cites a case
wherein the Germans threatened to close the Bank of Belgium and intended
later to confiscate it as well as the "Societe Generale" in view of the
continued resistance of said bank to the desire of the Germans to regulate
the currency in circulation after the security therefor had been trans-
ferred to London. It was then that the Belgians submitted to the Germans
a legal opinion signed by eminent writers on international law, among
them being Professor Hyss of Brussels, wherein the following was said:
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