The "Safety Zone" Question
The British Government have addressed a conciliatory but firm reply to the declaration of a "300-mile safety zone" around American coasts made at the Panama Congress, and to the protests against its alleged violation by both belligerents in the battle with the 'Graf Spee.' The note points out that the proposal involves the abandonment of certain belligerent rights, and therefore under international law requires the consent of belligerents before it can come into force. It goes on to show that the adoption of the pro- posal would provide German warships with a vast sanctuary from which they would emerge to attack Allied and neutral shipping, and could lead to an accumulation in the zone of German vessels which British ships could not engage without laying themselves open to penalties. It could only be acceptable if the American Governments could undertake to exclude German warships from the zone and intern all German vessels in American ports. The reply has had a good reception in the United States, where it is fully recognised that the American Governments have no means of enforcing the inviolability of so broad an expanse of ocean, and that any attempt to do so would amount to intervention in the war.
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