CO129-219 Foreign Office 1884 — Page 316

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M. l'Ambassadeur,

3*

No. 7.

Earl Granville to M. Wuddington.

315

C. O.

19768

REC:

REGO 19 NOV 84,

Foreign Office, October 31, 1884. I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's letter of the 24th instant, inclosing a copy of the notification of the blockade of the ports of Formosa by the French naval forces in China as it appears in the "Journal Officiel."

In thanking you for that communication, I beg to transmit copies of the "London Gazette," in which that notification has been duly published in the usual manner.

I avail myself of this opportunity, M. l'Ambassadeur, to ask your Excellency to be good enough to consider, in communication with your Government, whether it might not be desirable that some understanding should be arrived at between Great Britain and France as regards the exercise of belligerent rights and the obligations of neutrality flowing from the notification of the blockade. The position of affairs up to the present time has been that both France and China have abstained from asserting or exercising those belligerent rights of visit and search over neutral vessels on the high seas which are incident to a state of war.

In these circumstances, Her Majesty's Government have, on their side, abstained from issuing the usual proclamation of neutrality.

They still entertain the hope that some pacific solution may be found of the present difficulty, and they are most reluctant to take any step which could aggravate the situation. But the notification of blockade which has now been issued by France to neutral Powers has created a different situation. It indicates an intention on the part of France of entering upon a new phase of hostilities and of asserting belligerent rights over neutral vessels. If so, it is of the highest importance that British ship- owners and merchants in China should not be left in doubt as to their position and liabilities in regard to their trade with China, which has already suffered severely from the existing state of affairs. On the other hand, it may still be the wish and intention of the French Government to confine the operations of war to particular localities, and while warning off neutral vessels and preventing all access by them to the blockaded ports of Formosa, to refrain altogether from exercising over them the belligerent rights of visit and of capture.

If the French Government should be disposed to limit the exercise of the rights of war over neutral vessels in the manner above indicated, Her Majesty's Government would consider it unnecessary to modify the instructions issued by them for the observance of neutrality during the hostilities, and which are at present confined to the observance of the provisions of the Foreign Enlistment Act.

I have the honour to request your Excellency to invite the consideration of your Government to the above observations, and to inform me of their view and wishes on this important subject.

X

I have, &c. (Signed)

GRANVILLE.