PROHIBITION: Hard-Hearted John

John Bull, whom Secretary Hughes has been trying to persuade to let us extend our property rights nine miles further to seaward to prevent rum-running, sent a reply to the State Department. The text of the note was not made public and will not be until the matter is closed. But the State Department let it be known that the reply was “not sympathetic.”

Secretary Hughes had proposed to several nations that the search and seizure limit for rum ships be extended from three miles to twelve miles from the U. S. coast. The other nations tacitly agreed that Great Britain should set the pace in the matter. This was agreeable to the State Department because no arrangement can be satisfactory without Great Britain’s participation.

Secretary Hughes suggested that, if a treaty were made for twelve-mile search and seizure, it should also include a provision that foreign ships might come into our territorial waters with liquor under seal. The British reply, while unsympathetic to extension of the three-mile limit, did not preclude further negotiation. It also promised that the proposal would be considered at the Imperial Conference, which opens in London on Oct. 1 (see page 8).