The news that Great Britain has declined to fall in with the United States Government's suggestion that prohibition agents should be permitted to search British ships for alcoholic beverages outside the three-miles limit is no more than was to be expected. A further telegram describes how all possible and reasonable precautions are to be taken. But Mr. Hughes's eminently vote-catching proposal is preposterous on the face of 1t. It is time that judges of the United States Supreme Court gave a decision as to what may and may not be done, in respect of liquor on foreign ships in American waters, as, in the hands of the politicians (each with an ear to the ground) the whole question is getting int> a helpless muddle. The Attorney-Genera] rules that "the transportation or sale of alcoholic liquors'' on foreign ships within three miles of the American coast is illegal. The American Embassy in London publishes a notice to the same effect, except that the ban on transportation disappears. Meanwhile, acting on the Daugherty ruling, New York Customs officials have actually been sealing up the private supplies of officers and seamen in British ships arriving at New York. Against all this, the far-reaching decision has been given by. a lower cotirt that a foreiga shipmaster, touching at American ports, need not include in_his manifest cargo which is not lawfully importable into the United States; and although such a decision cuts at the foundations of the Daugherty ruling, the Supreme Court, being divided equally on the subject, cannot reverse it. The Cunard Company is reported to be bringing a test case under the Daugherty ruling, and the results will be awaited with interest. For at present the~prohibition amendment is being interpreted by the politicians entirely to suit themselves, and as the Administration has incurred a good deal of odium for the freedom it has accorded to American ships to sell liquor, and is anxious to clear itself from reproach, its actions ara likely to be more zealous than well-considered.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.