In November, 1914, four vessels of Norwegian register, the Kim, the Alfred Nobel, the Bjornstjerne Bjornson, and the Fridland, bound from New York to Copenhagen, were captured on their voyage by British warships and their cargoes were seized on the ground that the foodstuffs, which constituted the bulk of the shipments, were conditional contraband suspected of being destined for the government or armed forces of Germany.

The mission for which I have the honor to speak is charged by the Government and the people of the United States of America with a message to the Government and the people of Russia.

The mission comes from a democratic republic. Its members are commissioned and instructed by a President who holds his high office as Chief Executive of more than one hundred million free people, by virtue of a popular election in which more than eighteen million votes were freely cast and fairly counted, pursuant to law, by universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage.

Just previous to the outbreak of the European War there was an international conference in session at Christiania in Norway which was charged with the solution of. a problem unique from an international standpoint. It arose from the extraordinary political situation of the archipelago of Spitzbergen lying about four hundred miles north of the Norwegian coast.

At the time when the Emden and all other German ships had ended their careers on the high seas, and England thought herself safe from the inroads of German cruisers on the ocean, about the middle of January, 1916, the Liverpool liner Appam disappeared on a voyage from Dakar, West Africa, to Plymouth, England. This ship had left its port of departure on January 11th and was expectgd in Plymouth the 21st of that month. After four days, wireless communication with the vessel ceased suddenly, and as nothing was heard of the ship during the following days, it was given up for lost. It was admitted that it had either gone down in a severe storm which had been raging on the West African coast, or had been sunk by a German submarine which had extended its radius of action.

The arrival of the fine British passenger vessel Appam at Newport News on January 31, 1916, in charge of a German prize crew and with about four hundred and fifty British subjects, passengers and sailors, including the Governor of Sierra Leone and some other prominent officials, not only created a picturesque situation, but raised some very important problems of international law.