without being attended with great confusion, causing serious delay to the mails, passengers and cargoes, and without causing for the letters in transit errors, losses, or at least great risk of miscarriage.

That is the reason why the allies had mail bags landed and sent to centers provided with the necessary force and equipment for prompt and regular handling. 2-In all this the allied Governments had no other object in view than to limit, as far as possible, the inconvenience that might result for innocent mails and neutral vessels from the legitimate exercise of their belligerent rights in respect to hostile correspondence.

3-The Government of the United States acknowledges it agrees with the allied Governments as to principle, but expresses certain divergent views and certain criticism as to the methods observed by the allies in applying these principles.

4-These divergencies of views and criticisms are as follows:

5-In the first place, according to the Government of the United States, the practice of the allied Governments is said to be contrary to their own declaration, in that while declaring themselves unwilling to seize and confiscate genuine mail on the high seas, they would obtain the same result by sending, with or without their consent, neutral vessels to allied ports, there to effect the seizures and confiscations above referred to, and thus exercise over those vessels a more extensive belligerent right than that which is theirs on the high seas. According to the Government of the United States there should be, in point of law, no distinction to be made between seizure of mails on the high seas, which the allies have declared they will not apply for the present, and the same seizure practiced on board ships that are, whether willingly or not, in an allied port.

6-On this first point, and as regards vessels summoned on the high seas and compelled to make for an allied port, the allied Governments have the honor to advise the Government of the United States that they have never subjected mails to a different treatment according as they were found on neutral vessels compelled to proceed to an allied port; they have always acknowledged that visits made in port after a forced change of course must in this respect be on the same footing as a visit on the high seas, and the criticism formulated by the Government of the United States does not, therefore, seem warranted.

7-As to ships which of their own accord call at allied ports it is important to point out that in this case they are really "voluntarily" making the call. In calling at an allied port the master acts, not on any order from the allied authorities, but solely carries out the instructions of the owner; neither are those instructions forced upon the said owner.

In consideration of certain advantages derived from the call at an allied port, of which he is at full liberty to enjoy or refuse the benefits, the owner instructs his captain to call at this or that port. He does not in truth undergo any restraint. As a point of law the allied Governments think it a rule generally accepted, particularly in the United States (United States v. Dickelman, U. S. Supreme Court, 1875; 92 U. S. Rep. 520; Scott's cases, 264), that merchant ships which enter a foreign port thereby place themselves under the laws in force in that port, whether in time of war or of peace, and when martial law is in force in that port. 8-Therefore, legitimate in the case of a neutral merchant ship entering an allied port for the authorities of the allied Government to make sure that the vessel carries nothing inimical to their national defense before granting its clearance.

The note declares the censorship is a necessary precaution against German wiles, and innocent neutrals have nothing to fear. It continues:

In the second place, according to the Government of the United States, the practice now followed by the allied Governments is contrary to the rule of Convention II of The Hague, 1907, which they declare their willingness to apply, and would, besides, constitute a violation of the practice heretofore followed by nations.

9-In regard to the value to be attached to the eleventh convention of The Hague, 1907, it may first of all be observed that it refers only to mails found at sea, and that it is entirely foreign to postal correspondence found on board ships in ports.

In the second place, from the standpoint of the peculiar circumstances of the present war, the Government of the United States is aware that that convention, as stated in the memorandum of the allies, has not been signed or ratified by six of the belligerent powers (Bulgaria, Italy, Montenegro, Russia, Serbia and Turkey); that for that very reason Germany availed itself of Article IX. of the

convention and denied, so far as it was concerned, the obligatory character in these stipulations, and that for these several reasons the convention possesses in truth but rather doubtful validity in law.

In spite of it all, the allied Governments are guided in the case of mails found on board ships in ports by the intentions expressly manifested in conferences of The Hague sanctioned in the preamble to convention II, and tending to protect pacific and innocent commerce only. Mails possessing that character are forwarded as quickly as circumstances permit.

In regard to mails found on vessels at sea, the allied Governments have not for the present refused to observe the terms of the convention reasonably interpreted; but they have not admitted and cannot admit that there is therein a final provision legally binding them from which they could not possibly depart. The allied Governments expressly reserve to themselves the right to do so in case enemy abuses and frauds, dissimulations and deceits should make such a measure necessary.

Paragraph 10 points out lack of precedent prohibiting seizure of mails on the high seas. Paragraph II details circumstances in which unresisted passage of mails would prove disadvantageous to a belligerent. The note continues:

12-The report adopted by the conference of The Hague in support of convention II leaves little doubt as to the former practice in the matter.

"These issues, opening the bags, examination, confiscation, if need be, in all cases delay or even loss, are the fate usually awaiting mail bags carried by sea in time of war. (Second peace conference, acts and documents, Vol. 1, 6, 266.)

13-The American note of May 24, 1916, invokes the practice followed by France in 1870; by the United States in 1898; by Great Britain in the South African war; by Japan and Russia in 1904, and now by Germany.

14—As regards the proceedings of the German Empire toward postal correspondence during the present war, the allied Governments have informed the Government of the United States of the names of some of the mail steamers whose mail bags have been-not examined to be sure-but purely and simply destroyed at sea by the German naval authorities.

Other names could very easily be added—the very recent case of the mail steamer Hudikswell (Swedish) carrying 670 mail bags, may be cited.

15-The allied Governments do not think that the criminal habit of sinking ships, passengers and cargoes, or abandoning on the high seas the survivors of such calamities is, in the eyes of the Government of the United States, any justification for the destruction of the mail bags on board; and they do not deem it to be its purpose to make a comparison between these destructive German proceedings and the acts of the allies in supervising and examining enemy correspondence.

16-As to the practice of Russia and of Japan, it may be permitted to a doubt that it was at variance with the method of the allied Governments in the present war.

Paragraphs 17 and 18 point out procedure adopted by Russia in her war with Turkey in 1877 and the war with Japan in 1904. They cite the seizure of neutral mail by Russian cruisers and its subsequent examination.

19 As regards the practice of Japan, the Japanese rules concerning prizes, dated March 15, 1904, made official enemy correspondence, with certain exceptions, contraband of war. They ordered the examination of mail bags on mail steamers unless there was on board an official of the post office making a declaration in writing and under oath that the bags contained no contraband.

20-The French practice during the war of 1870 is found outlined in the naval instructions of July 26, 1870, under which official dispatches were on principle assimilated to contraband, and official or private letters found on board captured vessels were to be sent immediately to the Minister of Marine.

21-During the South African war the British Government was able to limit its intervention in the forwarding of postal correspondence and mails as far as the circumstances of that war allowed, but it did not cease to exercise its supervision of the mails intended for the enemy.

22-As to the practice followed by the Government of the United States during the American Civil War, particularly in the Peterhoff case, cited in the American memorandum of May 24, 1916, the following instructions issued in that case by the Secretary of State of the United States do not seem to imply anything but the forwarding of correspondence which has been found to be innocent:

"I have, therefore, to recommend that in this case if the District Attorney has any evidence to show the mails are simulated and not genuine it shall be submitted

to the court; if there be no reasonable grounds for that belief then that they be put on their way to their original destination."

(Letter of Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, to Mr. Welles, Secretary of the Navy, April 15, 1863; vii. Moore's dig., P. 482.)

Paragraph 23 recounts the American blockade of Tampico during the Mexican War in 1846 and the American naval authorities' permission to neutral mail ships to enter and leave. The note then says no precedent can be based on this, declaring:

24-It seems difficult to compare the blockade of the port of Tampico in 1846 with the measures taken by the allies in the course of this war to reduce the economic resistance of the German Empire, or to find in the method then adopted by the United States a precedent which condemns the practice now put in use by the allied governments.

25-To waive the right to visit mail steamers and mail bags intended for the enemy seemed in the past (Dr. Lushington, "Naval Prize Law," Introd. p. VII.) a sacrifice which could hardly be expected of belligerents.

The allied Governments have again noted in their preceding memorandum how and why, relying on certain declarations of Germany, they had thought in the course of the Second Peace Conference of 1907 they could afford to waive that right. They have also drawn the attention of the Government of the United States to the fraudulent use Germany hastened to make of this waiver of the previous practices above mentioned.

26-After pointing to a certain number of specific cases where American interests happened to be injured from the postal supervision exercised by the British authorities, forming the subject of the special memorandum of the Government of His Majesty, dated July 20, 1916, the Government of the United States was pleased to make known its views as to what is to be and is not to be recognized as not possessing the character of postal correspondence.

27-In this respect the Government of the United States admits that shares, bonds, coupons and other valuable papers, money orders, checks, drafts, bills of exchange and other negotiable papers, being the equivalent of money, may when included in postal shipments be considered as of the same nature as merchandise and other property, and therefore be also subjected to the exercise of belligerent rights.

28-Yet the American memorandum adds that correspondence, including shipping documents, lists of money orders and documents of this nature, even though referring to shipments to or exports by the enemy, must be treated as mail, and pass freely unless they refer to merchandise on the same ship that is liable to capture.

29-As regards shipping documents and commercial correspondence found on neutral vessels, even in an allied port, and offering no interest of consequence as affecting the war, the allied governments have instructed their authorities not to stop them, but to see that they are forwarded with as little delay as possible. Mail matter of that nature must be forwarded to destination as fast as practicable, on the very ship on which it was found, or by a speedier route, as is the case for certain mails inspected in Great Britain.

30-As for the lists of money orders, to which the Government of the United States assigns the character of ordinary mail, the allied governments deem it their duty to draw the attention of the Government of the United States to the following practical consideration:

31-As a matter of fact the list of money orders mailed from the United States to Germany and Austria-Hungary correspond to moneys paid in the United States and payable by the German and Austria-Hungarian post office.

Those lists acquaint those post offices with the sums that have been paid there, which in consequence they have to pay to the addressees. In practice, such payment is at the disposal of such addressees and is effected directly to them as soon as those lists arrive and without the requirement of the individual orders having come into the hands of the addressees. These lists are thus really actually money orders transmitted in lump in favor of several addressees.

Nothing, in the opinion of the allied governments, seems to justify the liberty granted to the enemy country so to receive funds intended to supply by that amount its financial resisting power.

32-The American memorandum sees fit firmly to recall that neutral and belligerent rights are equally sacred, and must be strictly respected. The allied Governments, so far as they are concerned, wholly share that view. They are sincerely striving to avoid an encroachment by the exercise of their belligerent

rights on the legitimate exercise of the rights of innocert neutral commerce, but they hold that it is their belligerent right to exercise on the high seas the supervision granted by international law to impede any transportation intended to aid their enemy in the conduct of the war and to uphold his resistance.

The rights of the United States as a neutral power cannot, in our opinion, imply the protection granted by the Federal Government to shipments, invoices, correspondence or communications in any shape whatever having an open or concealed hostile character and with a direct or indirect hostile destination, which American private persons can only effect at their own risk and peril.

That is the very principle which was expressly stated by the President of the United States in his neutrality proclamation.

33-Furthermore, should any abuses, grave errors, or derelictions committed by the allied authorities charged with the duty of inspecting mails be disclosed to the Governments of France and Great Britain, they are now as they ever were ready to settle responsibility therefor in accordance with the principles of law and justice, which it never was and is not now their intention to evade.

MESSAGE TO THE PHILIPPINES

[Congratulating the People of the Islands Upon the Assembling of the First Congress of. Natives.]

President Wilson, through Secretary of War Baker, sent to GovernorGeneral Harrison, of the Philippines, a message congratulating him on the convention of the Assembly and Senate of the islands, for the first time composed entirely of natives.

October 16, 1916.

Will you not be kind enough to convey to the members of the Legislature, the first to meet under the new act, my most cordial greetings and best wishes, and will you not express to them the hope that the confidence that has been reposed in them by the people and the Government of the United States will be most abundantly vindicated by their whole course of action and policy? For myself, I look forward with confidence to the growth of self-government in the Philippines under this new and happier order of things and am glad to have had a part in taking the great step in advance which has now been taken. WOODROW WILSON.

EXECUTIVE ORDERS

[Requiring American Citizens Traveling Abroad to Procure Passports.] All persons leaving the United States for foreign countries should be provided with passports of the Governments of which they are citizens. These documents are rendered necessary because the regulations of all European countries and of several other foreign countries require passports or other documents of identification of all persons who enter their boundaries. The Secretary of State, in co-operation with the Secretary of the Treasury, will make arrangements for the inspection of passports of all persons, American or foreign, leaving this country, and the fact that these passports have been seen will be stamped thereon.

All applications to the Secretary of State for passports from American citizens must be made in duplicate, and must be accompanied with three copies of the photograph of the applicant. Each applicant for a passport must inform the Department of State at what point he intends to depart, on what date, and by what ship if he sails from an American port.

Applications shall be made in the manner heretofore prescribed by the rules governing the granting and issuing of passports, but the Secretary of State may designate an agent or agents to take applications, and wherever his agent is stationed applications shall be made only before him.

This order will become effective as soon as the Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury have made the arrangements necessary for that purpose.

THE WHITE HOUSE, December 15, 1915.

WOODROW WILSON.

[Relating to Cancellation and Reissue of Passports.]

The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to direct customs officers at ports of entry into the United States to take up passports of American citizens returning to this country. Passports which are not to be used again may be canceled and returned to the owners. Passports which are to be used again should be sent to the Department of State, and the owners informed that they should notify the Department of State, at least five days before they expect to leave this country again, as to the port, name of vessel and date of sailing. If such a person expects to go abroad for an object not mentioned in his passport, or to visit a country not named therein, he should make application in the usual way for a new passport.

THE WHITE HOUSE, March 13, 1916.

WOODROW WILSON.

[Philippines-Requiring Governor General to Report to Secretary of War.] The following provision is contained in Section 21 of an Act of Congress approved August 29, 1916, entitled:

"An Act to declare the purpose of the people of the United States as to the future political status of the people of the Philippine Islands, and to provide a more autonomous government for those islands."

"He (the Governor General of the Philippine Islands) shall annually and at such other times as he may be required make such official report of the transactions of the government of the Philippine Islands to an executive department of the United States to be designated by the President, and his said annual report shall be transmitted to the Congress of the United States; And he shall perform such additional duties and functions as may in pursuance of law be delegated or assigned to him by the President.”