[6] ‘The Government will use all its belligerent rights, whatever they may be, whether under the Order in Council, or under the law apart from that Order’ (Lord Robert Cecil, House of Commons, 19th Oct. 1915). ‘The Foreign Office is profoundly anxious to enforce to the utmost our blockade rights.... Taking the broad results, the blockade of Germany had been a great success, and not a great failure’ (Lord Robert Cecil, House of Commons, 2nd Nov. 1915). [7] The ‘Three Rules’ are contained in Article 6 of the Treaty of Washington, 1871, by which the settlement of the Alabama claims was arranged. It provided that: ‘In deciding the matters submitted to the Arbitrators, they shall be governed by the following three rules, which are agreed upon by the High Contracting Parties as rules to be taken as applicable to the case, and by such principles of international law not inconsistent therewith as the Arbitrators shall determine to have been applicable to the case. A neutral Government is bound--first, to use due diligence to prevent the fitting out, arming, or equipping, within its jurisdiction, of any vessel which it has reasonable ground to believe is intended to cruise or to carry on war against a Power with which it is at peace; and also to use like diligence to prevent the departure from its jurisdiction of any vessel intended to cruise or carry on war as above, such vessel having been specially adapted, in whole or in part, within such jurisdiction, to warlike uses. Secondly, not to permit or suffer either belligerent to make use of its ports or waters as the base of naval operations against the other, or for the purpose of the renewal or augmentation of military supplies or arms, or the recruitment of men. Thirdly, to exercise due diligence in its own ports and waters, and, as to all persons within its jurisdiction, to prevent any violation of the foregoing obligations and duties. Her Britannic Majesty has commanded Her High Commissioners and Plenipotentiaries to declare that Her Majesty’s Government cannot assent to the foregoing rules as a statement of principles of international law which were in force at the time when the claims mentioned in Article 1 arose, but that Her Majesty’s Government, in order to evince its desire of strengthening the friendly relations between the two countries and of making satisfactory provision for the future, agrees that in deciding the questions between the two countries arising out of those claims, the Arbitrators should assume that Her Majesty’s Government had undertaken to act upon the principles set forth in these rules. And the High Contracting Parties agree to observe these rules as between themselves in future, and to bring them to the knowledge of other maritime Powers, and to invite them to accede to them.’