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announced war between Japan and the United States to be imminent, he had decided to make for a Brazilian port to obtain instructions from his owners. He ended by protesting vehemently against the action of the submarine in firing into him, claiming to be well within his rights in trying to escape, as submarine attacks on merchant shipping were forbidden by international law.
    At this point Lieutenant Bradlow broke off the parley by ordering the steamer to shape a course for Colon, and this was done under protest, the S 4 following astern with her gun trained on the prize, the short voyage being accomplished without further incident. As soon as the Nikko Maru reached Colon she was boarded and thoroughly searched, but nothing of a suspicious nature was found. Nevertheless, having been captured after war had broken out, she was held as lawful prize, and eventually put into service as a United States fleet auxiliary.
    On receiving a detailed report of the circumstances from Lieutenant Bradlow, through the officer commanding the Canal Zone, the Navy Department officially approved his action. It was realised, however, that a dangerous precedent had been set, of which the enemy would not be slow to take advantage. Evidence of this was soon forthcoming in the shape of an official message from Tokyo, which announced to the world that since a United States submarine, in direct contravention of the Five-Power Treaty signed at Washington in 1922, had molested and fired on an unarmed Japanese merchant steamer, and since this illegal act on the part of the commander of the submarine had not been disavowed by the United States authorities, the Japanese Government had no option but to regard the said Treaty as null and void, and would, accordingly, reserve to itself the right to employ its own submarines in any way it saw fit. This led to much controversy among international jurists as to whether the action of S 4 did, in fact, constitute a breach of the Treaty regulating the procedure of submarines with regard to merchant vessels. The pertinent clauses of the Treaty were as follows:
    (1) A merchant vessel must be ordered to submit to visit and search to determine its character before it can be seized.
    A merchant vessel must not be attacked unless it refuse to submit to visit and search after warning, or to proceed as directed after seizure …
    (2) The belligerent submarines are not under any circumstances exempt from the universal rules above stated; and if a submarine cannot capture a merchant vessel in conformity with these rules the existing law of nations requires it to desist from attack and from seizure, and to permit the merchant vessel to proceed unmolested.
    The Signatory Powers recognise the practical impossibility of using submarines as commerce destroyers without violating, as they were violated in the recent war of 1914-18, the requirements universally accepted by civilised nations for the protection of the lives of neutrals and non-combatants, and to the end that the prohibition of the use of submarines as commerce destroyers shall be universally accepted as a part of the law of nations, they now accept that prohibition as henceforth binding as between themselves, and they invite all other nations to adhere thereto.
    It will be seen that the rules laid down as above were to some extent contradictory. On the one hand, a submarine was authorised by implication to detain, visit and search a merchant vessel, and equally by implication to attack such a vessel if it refused to submit to visit and search. On the other hand, the submarine was expressly forbidden to persist with the attack if it seemed impossible to capture the merchant vessel without endangering the lives of non-combatants on board. Finally, the Signatory Powers, of whom the United States was one, had in the concluding paragraph virtually bound themselves not to employ submarines against merchant vessels under any circumstances whatever. It could be, and was, argued