31501
R
No. 231A.
(CANADA.)
FOREIGN OFFICE to LAW OFFICERS.
[Russo-Japanese War.—Transmission of Cypher Telegrams by Belligerents over Neutral Cables.]
GENTLEMEN,
Foreign Office, July 29, 1904.
I HAVE the honour, by direction of the Marquess of Lansdowne, to transmit, for your consideration, the accompanying letter from Sir Spencer Walpole, K.C.B., with its enclosures (Paper A), with reference to the despatch of cypher telegrams over the Pacific Cable.
I am to explain that the ownership of the Pacific Cable is distributed between the Government of this country and those of various Colonies, but that the use of the cable is open to the public at large at a fixed tariff; the management of the cable is entrusted to a Board, of which Sir S. Walpole is Chairman. (See 1 Ed. 7, c. 31, and 2 Ed. 7, c. 26.)
There is an operating station for the cable on Fanning Island, in the Pacific, where a superintendent and a small number of employés are maintained, and Sir S. Walpole thinks it likely that, in the event of the Baltic Fleet being sent to the Far East via Cape Horn, the Russians might desire to send telegrams by the cable in cypher, and is anxious to provide the staff at Fanning Island with the necessary instructions.
The rights and duties of neutrals with regard to the use of submarine cables for the despatch of messages by belligerent cruisers were considered by your predecessors at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, and a copy of their opinion (Paper B) is enclosed instructions (Paper C) in aceordance with that opinion were subsequently forwarded to all the Colonial Governors.
The Pacific Cable, however, was not constructed at that time, and no further instructions have since been issued.
Your recent opinion on the carriage of goods for belligerent forces over a State railway belonging to a neutral Power is also enclosed (Paper D), as the question raises somewhat similar considerations to those applicable to the use by belligerents of Government cables.
I am to request that you will take the papers into your consideration, and will favour Lord Lansdowne with your opinion whether the instructions to be sent to Fanning Island should follow the lines of those issued in 1898, omitting the last para- graph, or whether you consider that any, and, if so, what modifications should be introduced.
His Lordship would also be glad to be favoured with any general observations which you may be good enough to offer on the papers submitted herewith.
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I have, &c.,
ELDON GORST.
PUBLIC RECORD
OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O. 885
15 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
List of Papers.
(A.) Sir Spencer Walpole
July
22, 1904.
(B.) Law Officers' Report (Confidential, No. 7199, p. 74)... May 7, 1898.* (C) Circular to Governors of Colonies (D) Law Officers' Report (China)
May April
17, 1898.
6, 1904.†
25 WR416 11/04 D & 8 5
No. 169 in Vol. V.
19616
↑ No. 220A.
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