BLOCKADE, MINISTRY OF. This department, one of the many administrative improvisations of the World War, was created on February 23, 1916, when Lord Robert Cecil received his appointment as minister of blockade. The term is technically incorrect, for no general blockade, in the strict legal sense, had been declared, but it expresses the purpose of the ministry, which was to co-ordinate and tighten up the whole machinery by which economic pressure was brought to bear on the Central Powers. The war had already assumed the character of a struggle of exhaustion, and it was imperative to take further steps for cutting off the supplies that continued to reach Germany through neutral ports ; but every additional turn of the screw involved fresh interference with neutral interests, and the whole "blockade" policy had to conform continuously to the diplomatic situation. These considerations dictated the form given to the ministry. Lord Robert Cecil was already an under-secretary of State for foreign affairs, and he retained that position. He worked, as minister of blockade, in the Foreign Office, and the contraband department of the Foreign Office formed his staff. As minister of blockade he received a seat in the cabinet, and became the respon sible head of all those departments and committees—the war trade advisory committee, the war trade department, the block ade, contraband, licensing, and enemy exports committees, which, whether within or without the Foreign Office, were directly concerned with the restriction of enemy supplies. Commander the Rt. Hon. F. Leverton Harris, R.N.V.R., M.P., became his parliamentary secretary, and he had the assistance of Vice Admiral Sir D. de Chair, K.C.B., M.V.O., as naval adviser.
From the first, the new minister adopted as the keynote of his policy, the rationing principle, by which the imports of neutral countries contiguous to Germany were restricted to their normal, peace requirements. This principle had already been accepted by the Government, and many important rationing agreements with neutral importers had been concluded ; but its application received a wide extension during 1916, through a long series of formal embargos laid on shipments of commodities which were being imported by the northern neutrals in excess of their home requirements. (See RATIONING OF NEUTRALS [BLOCKADE] ; RE STRICTION OF ENEMY SUPPLIES COMMITTEE; and WAR TRADE ADVISORY COMMITTEE.) Two other weapons taken over and developed by the ministry were the "Navicert" system and the Black Lists. By the former, American exporters agreed to submit, in advance, particulars of all shipments to Scandinavia, receiving Letters of Assurance in respect of approved shipments, which entitled the ship to pass without detention. The Black Lists were used to deny British goods, and the assistance of British banks, accepting houses, and underwriters, to neutral firms engaged in enemy trade. The crea tion of a financial section of the ministry of blockade, in May 1916, was of great assistance both in the working of the Black Lists, and in restricting the enemy's financial operations abroad.
Throughout 1917 and 1918 the ministry of blockade remained the connecting link between the cabinet, the Foreign Office, and the numerous bodies, advisory or executive, engaged in weaving that intricate network of agreements and embargos, prohibitions and licences, on which the exertion of economic pressure came more and more to depend. Its task of adjusting the activities of these bodies to the exigencies of foreign policy was, of course, greatly facilitated by the entry of the United States into the war, and in the final stages of the conflict, it received the co-operation of the Allied Blockade committee, established in March 1918, with a rationing and statistical sub-committee, appointed in May of the same year. Even after the Armistice it continued to perform essential functions, for it was not until the signing of the Peace treaty with Germany, in June 1919, that the blockade was finally lifted.
While the policy of the ministry followed, in the main, lines already laid down and partially adopted, there can be no ques tion as to its service in increasing the stringency of the strangle hold on the Central Powers. The instruments of the blockade were so numerous and various, yet so intimately related to each other and to foreign policy that a central directing authority, in close and continuous touch with the Foreign Office itself, was absolutely essential to the full development of its powers.
(C. E. F.)