1 JULY 1916, Page 9

In the House of Commons on Wednesday a very important

and satisfactory announcement was made by Lord Robert Cecil in regard to the Declaration of London. Adhesion to that ill-omened pact has now been totally abandoned. In agreement with the French Government—an agreement which will no doubt be endorsed by the rest of our Allies—we are now freed from the entanglements which we wove for our own discomfiture, and we shall be able to prosecute the blockade without having one arm tied behind Rs. We sincerely trust that, the letter of the Declaration having gone, its ill-starred spirit will altogether vanish with it, or, to put it in another way, that the ghost of this disreputable document will not continue to haunt our diplomats and our naval officers.