fications of ability and of neutrality demanded by the existing circumstances; 4. That at this time there are not at hand experts who combine such qualifications, which renders it impossible to accomplish the functions which the contract has imposed upon the local authorities; 5. That, for this reason, the Government has received some complaints and reclamations against the transmission of dispatches at the radio station of Cartagena, complaints and reclamations founded on the fact that the radio company has disregarded the neutrality of the Republic in the war carried on by various States; It is resolved: The service of the radio station of Cartagena is temporarily suspended until, by virtue of the cooperation of suitable experts, the supervision and preventive censorship of the local authorities may be realized in the service of the station and in the transmission and delivery of its dispatches. As soon as suitable experts can be employed, who will render possible the preventive censorship and in this manner the neutrality of the Republic will in a measure be clearly guaranteed, the station can resume its service by submitting to the obligatory censorship and supervision. The governor of Cartagena in notifying this decision, will also warn the radio company, conformably to article 18 of the contract of May 11, 1912, that the nonaccomplishment of article 15 or of any of the stipulations of the contract will give the Government the right to declare the contract void by administrative action. Communicated by emergency telegram to the government of Cartagena. Published in the Journal Officiel. By His Excellency the President of the Republic. MARCO FIDEL SUAREZ. Circular of the Minister of Foreign Relations of Colombia to the editors of periodical publications in Colombia on the subject of the neutrality which the press should observe in the present war. November 27, 1914. [Republica de Colombia, Informe del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores al Congreso de 1915, p. 119; Rev. Gén., Doc. 23: 31.] MINISTRY OF FOREIGN RELATIONS, Bogota, November 27, 1914. MR. EDITOR: The gigantic war which has for four months desolated various nations and afflicted the world affects not only the belligerents but creates very delicate and grave duties for neutrals. From first to last civilized peoples all meet in neutrality occasions for fear and annoyance because of the importance of their duties as well as because of the dangers which nonobserv ance of these duties may bring in the shape of possible future reclamations. When our Government spoke for the first time of Colombian neutrality in the present war, certain writings, termed the official resolutions, "ridiculous acts," attributing to the idea of nation an importance which it does not have. These publicists have without doubt forgotten the first rudiments of these questions, since it is known that all international persons, feeble or powerful, have duties and rights in time of peace or in time of war. Neutrality imposes obligations primarily upon governments, their agents, and their forces, but the civil society, that is to say the people, individuals, and associations, and the organs of public opinion are no longer in this respect exempt from certain duties. Although the progress of law to-day tends to limit war to governments and to armies relieving the population from hostilities, neutrality on the contrary by virtue of analogous humanitarian ideas tends to be applied to the population itself as well as to the authorities. To-day, the public opinion of the United States conceives of a social neutrality inspired not by strict law but by common prudence and fraternity and disposed to consider the susceptibilities of peoples. The most fertile field of application for this new conception of neutrality is the periodical press. The press can inflame the opinion of a neutral society and occasion there veritable damages by its tone and its criticisms. There may result from this deplorable consequences as the injury of aliens domiciled in the territory, traditional friends of the nation in which they reside, bound to it by the bonds of family and useful to its progress and to its culture; as offenses to powerful governments in the person of their rulers or their sovereigns, who will bring it about that later their governments will not regard the country with favor, although it may have need of them for the development of its credit and its commerce; as finally an attaint upon a good public reputation, of which a cultivated press is the principal element. A course, discreet, correct, and moderate on the part of the periodical publications whenever they treat of facts relative to the belligerents should be regarded as a kind of duty for neutral societies, although it is a question here of an imperfect duty, for there is a want of sanction. Thus one can not disapprove, Mr. Editor, of the complaint which, under date of the 25th instant, his excellency the minister of the German Empire at Bogota addressed to this ministry against certain articles published by the press of this capital, any more than of the reply of the minister to his excellency indicating publicly the ideas and sentiments expressed in the present circular. Not because the public authorities are the only personalities upon whom is incumbent the duty of showing neither favor nor hostility to belligerents, nor because impartiality can coexist with sympathies or antipathies more or less definite, nor finally because the liberty of the press authorizes in practice all kinds of publications, ought one to admit as proper the possibility for the press to take no account of truth, courtesy, and good will. Absolute liberty of the press does not nullify the duty here in question. If to-day it has begun to be recognized that culture, truth, and good will are imposed on periodicals from the point of view of neutrality, that is to say, that such practices are becoming a duty between nations, and if international law constitutes a part of the law of a country, it clearly results that these rules of propriety should impose an obligation upon the most free press. The fact that neutrality can coexist with sympathy no longer justifies the doctrine which we combat. Sympathy is a thing, just and indeed necessary, for a state of absolute indifference is impossible for the spirit or for the soul. But sympathies and antipathies can be expressed in the reasonable form of truth, in the respectful form of courtesy, and in the Christian form of good will. It is no longer true to say that once the Government has officially observed impartiality, associations, individuals, and the press can express themselves as they please, for we have seen that such an attitude may wound aliens domiciled in the country, occasion the hostility with all its injurious consequences of powerful governments, tarnish the good reputation of the country itself. A proof of the truth of the preceding reflections is found in some passages of the famous speech delivered on September 9 by Senator Stone, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate of the United States: Another thing to which I desire to call especial attention and emphasize is the partisan attitude being assumed by many of the great publications of this country. Knowing how potent these publications can be in creating public opinion and in fomenting factional strife, it is natural that those upon whom the responsibilities of government are cast should look upon this particular phase of partisanship with deep solicitude and apprehension. The managers of these great publications, even far more than individual citizens in more private walks, should be very mindful of the patriotic duty they owe their own country in this great emergency. It is a source of profound regret that so many influential journals and periodicals are beginning to take sides in this mighty contest, and are beginning not only to express their sympathies for the one side or the other, but to indulge in harsh criticism and sometimes in denunciations of the Governments and the armies of those with whom they are not in accord. This is not only hurtful at home in exciting animosities among our own people, but it creates bad impressions and arouses hot resentments abroad; and moreover it should be manifest to every man that this sort of thing works estrangements and makes free and cordial intercourse between this Government and the Governments of the nations at war more difficult and embarrassing. How can any patriotic and right-thinking American forget that ours is the only one of the great world powers holding the enviable but delicate position of absolute neutrality? To that policy, founded upon the love of peace and springing from an honest desire to be of service to mankind, we are pledged by the most solemn assurance, and to a strict observance of that pledge we are bound by every consideration of national interest and honor. It is amazing that great editors and publishers should so forget the supreme duty they owe to their own Government as to become callous about and thoughtless of the Nation's plighted faith, and to indulge in vituperative attacks upon the rulers or the Governments of any of the belligerent powers, or seek to arouse against any of them a hostile public sentiment in this country.1 Nothing is more natural than to give information on the progress of a conflict which interests us much, as it interests all people; but this information, far from augmenting the feelings to which the existence of any struggle naturally gives birth, should tend to develop the views which we formulate in order that concord may replace hate and in order that there may be an end to a warlike devastation, the greatest in which man has yet taken part. Thus commands justice, interest, and the spirit of religion; thus persuades the conditions of the States in conflict. How much is it to be desired that a state of peace and progress be reestablished for all of them? Belgium, the fine nation of industry and social well being merits more than any other people that such a wish be realized. France merits it also, for she is the organ par excellence of the civilization of the world. England, the same, by reason of the services which she has rendered for centuries to the liberty of peoples. The German Empire equally merits it, for her powerful culture in which is combined science, commerce, industry, public instruction, and domestic morality; Austria for the prestige of the Holy Empire which the diverse elements of her nationality entails; Russia, because some day to the grandeur of her territory will be added the grandeur of social and political reforms. The same wish corresponds to our ardent desire that there be an end to a war which already overwhelms us by the fatality of its consequences and which each day renders more injurious to us. If you wish, Mr. Editor, to interpret faithfully the feelings of this circular, elaborated according to the instructions of the Republic, you must see in it not the need of acting as a schoolmaster, but the intention of preventing for the Government the difficulties of complaints and the desire to render peace so effective in our territory that its wings will cover even the manifestations relating to the modest neutrality of our fatherland. I have the honor to be your respectful servant and compatriot, MARCO FIDEL SUAREZ. Resolution by which the radio station of Cartagena is closed during the European war. December 5, 1914. [Republica de Colombia, Informe del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores al Congreso de 1915, p. 116.] MINISTRY OF FOREIGN RELATIONS, Bogota, December 5, 1914. Considering that in article 15 of the contract made May 23, 1912, between the ministry of the Government and the radio com 1 Congressional Record, 51: 14853. pany at Cartagena (Gesellschaft für Drathlose Telegraphie, M. B. H.) it is stipulated that in case of foreign war the radio station can function under the inspection and the censorship of the Government, the object obviously being to assure the neutrality of the Republic in relation to the belligerents; Considering that, in the first days of the European war, care was taken to establish the inspection and the censorship stipulated in the contract, but that later it became clear that these measures would not be satisfactory because of the lack of competent experts effectively representing the Government in order to give assurance that the station will neither receive nor transmit messages capable of violating the territorial neutrality of Colombia; Considering that by reason of this circumstance the radio station of Cartegena has been provisionally closed until a competent technician has been found to exercise the supervision and censorship of the radiotelegraph; was Considering that, subsequently, the technician desired found and that a contract was made with him requiring a monthly remuneration of 1,200 pesos in gold, charged to the Government, and that his presence at Cartagena and his supervision of the station has been constant, in such a manner that no messages have been received or transmitted without the interpretation of the censor, and for this reason it was ordered that only messages in the Spanish, English, or French languages would be allowed and that the use of any cipher whatsoever would be prohibited: Considering that the supervision and the censorship to which the Government has a right by virtue of the contracts cited and to which it was obligated by reason of its duties of international neutrality having been established in this manner, the legation of Great Britain has asked that the German employees be excluded from the radio station; Considering that, in spite of the fact that the censorship exercised by means of the technician named for this work has been constant and has prevented, in the opinion of the Government, all messages contrary to neutrality, the Government, at the departure of the inspector of the station which was closed, wished finally to follow in the circumstances the practice which the Government of the United States would adopt, and with this object obtained the necessary information; Considering that consequently it has been ordered to exclude absolutely from all employment or from all business in the radio station every employee, German or belonging to any other nationality engaged in the present European conflict, the measure being notified in sufficient time to those interested by the governor of Cartagena: Considering that, by reason of the closing of the station at this time on account of an injury to the apparatus and of the |