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13029/1904.
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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O. 8
No. 59A. (GENERAL.)
FOREIGN OFFICE to ATTORNEY-GENERAL. [Neutrality: Status of Despatch Vessels.]
DEAR ATTORNEY-GENERAL,
Foreign Office, November 20, 1900. You will recollect that in 1898 the Lord Chief Justice (then Attorney-General) and yourself, with Simpson, wrote a rather detailed Report on the subject of the obligations of a neutral Power with regard to the use of telegraphic lines or cables by belligerents (see annexed copy of Law Officers' Report of the 7th May, 1898).*
Towards the end of paragraph 4 of that Report you drew a distinction between the treatment to be accorded to a "despatch-boat" sent under such circumstances as were mentioned in Lord Tweeddale's letter and that to be accorded to a "cruiser," and the distinction which you drew in 1898 in this regard is preserved by the terms of the later Report which you furnished on the 15th August last.f
The whole matter is now engaging the attention of the Departments principally concerned (Admiralty, General Post Office, Colonial Office, and Foreign Office), with a view to the preparation of instructions for their officers by the light of these two Reports, and some doubt exists amongst those who have had to deal with the Reports as to the exact sense in which you employed the expression "despatch-boat" in the Report of the 7th May, 1898.
My own strong belief is that you were intending to draw a distinction between vessels of war or national ships of a belligerent on the one hand, and vessels ("despatch- boat sent under such circumstances as were mentioned in Lord Tweeddale's letter ") on the other hand, which were not actually in the navy of the belligerent, nor employed by it for belligerent purposes, and which consequently do not come under the restric- tions as to stay in port, limited right of coaling, &c., applicable in the case of national
vessels.
But owing to the fact that the term "despatch vessel" is also employed to denote a well-known class of national vessels, in which armament is entirely subordinated to speed, the Report is perhaps open to the construction which has also been put upon it, "cruiser" or fighting national that the distinction intended to be drawn is between a vessel on the one hand, and a despatch vessel or national news vessel on the other.
It seems to me that this cannot really be so, as there is no distinction in essence between a despatch vessel and a fighting vessel in the public employment of the State. Both are national vessels, and each is equally subject to the restrictions adverted to above.
We do not like, however, especially in the presence of the doubt which has been expressed, to put a gloss upon your language which it is possible it may not have been intended it should bear, and I therefore have suggested that it would be desirable to refer the matter back to you privately. We can, on hearing from you, either put an you think explanatory note, with your authority, in the margin of the Report, or if that the language of the 1898 Report ought in any respect to be amplified with regard to this special point that can equally readily be done.
Yours very sincerely,
W. E. DAVIDSON.
Report.
885
15 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
'ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
I agree with the view expresed in your letter of the 20th as to the meaning of
in paragraph 4 of our Report of the 7th May, 1898.
the passage
R. B. FINLAY.
Probably a note might be added explaining that the passage does not apply to vessels forming part of the fleet of the belligerent, though they are chiefly or entirely used for carrying despatches.
Royal Courts of Justice,
R. B. F.
November 27, 1900.
No. 169 in Vol. V.
† No. 46.
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D&B 17996