JLAJND AND .WATER. 
July 31, 1915 
In the course of the Note, it is stated that 
these principles confer certain rights on American 
citizens, and that these rights have been gravely 
and unjustifiably violated by German naval com- 
manders. Such violations are illegal, and when 
they involve the actual sacrifice or risk of life, 
inhuman and manifestly indefensible. Humanity, 
justice, and a due regard for the dignity of neutral 
powers dictate that such violations must be dis- 
continued. To persist in them would be an un- 
pardonable offence against the sovereignty of the 
neutral nation affected. The matter is critical, 
and a repetition of such acts will, when they affect 
American citizens, be regarded as deliberately 
unfriendly. The Note reiterates that America 
intends to abide by these principles, and from 
whatever quarter they may be violated, will main- 
tain them without com/promise and at any cost. 
Friendly — almost affectionate — phraseology 
abounds, but the reader will not fail to have 
noted that the definition of principles is rigid, the 
condemnation of the taking of life is scathing, and 
the terms in which America's attitude towards any 
fresh breach is stated are unmistakably a menace. 
Pacifists will note with some sadness that the 
mollifying touch of the amazing Mr. Bryan is con- 
spicuous by its absence. 
the past two months have clearly indicated that 
it is possible and practicable to conduct . 
submarine operations ... in substantial 
accord with the established principles of regulated 
warfare. The whole world has looked with 
interest and increasing satisfaction at the demon- 
stration of that possibility. . . . It is mani- 
festly possible, therefore, to lift the whole practice 
of submarine attack above criticism." The pas- 
sage implies that German practice illustrates the 
reasonable allowances that must be made. 
THE "LEELANAW." 
Does the Note mean that at the first violation 
of these principles the Ambassadors will be with- 
drawn and that war will be declared? The 
German newspapers apparently expect this as in- 
evitable. All those that have been quoted in the 
British Press announce with unmistakable 
emphasis that the continuation of submarine war- 
fare is a German necessity, and most continue un- 
changed. The writers are struck by America's 
" hateful disdain " of Germany's point of view. 
The President's obstinacy, in his repudiation of 
Germany being justified by the right of retalia- 
tion, IS fiercely denounced. And, as if to test either 
the meaning or sincerity of America, the steamer 
Leelanaw was, on Sunday, sunk at a point north of 
the Orkneys and due west of the southernmost 
point of the Shetland Islands. If the President 
means what he seems to say, this act is to be 
regarded as unfriendly, and only perhaps not 
deliberately unfriendly, because it follows too 
quickly on the Note to leave room for deliberation. 
In March, on the German announcement of 
the war area around Great Britain, it will he 
remembered that President Wilson coupled the 
destruction of an American ship with the destruc- 
tion of American life as acts which America 
would resent, and for which she would hold the 
perpetrators to strict account. Whether or not 
the sinking of the Leelanaw is a case in point 
depends, it seems to me, entirely on what is meant 
by another passage in the Note. 
In this the President, while making allow- 
ance for the novel conditions of modern war 
speaks as if he could not, on that accoimt, abate 
any tundamental right of American citizens His 
attitude, at first, seems to be that the bellic^erents 
must adapt their new methods to old principles 
and not expect neutrals to waive their principles 
so as to tolerate the new methods. But he does say 
that the conditions have altered radically, and that 
reasonable allowance must be made for them and 
continues in the following words. : " The events of 
12 
How has the conduct of German submarines 
in the last two months demonstrated that 
ships can be searched, and only seized and 
destroyed, after search has proved the pre- 
sence of contraband ? And, if destroyed, how has 
this been effected without jeopardy to non-com- 
batant lives ? In these two months 113 ships and 
nearly half as many trawlers have been attacked 
by submarines, and a very large number have been 
sunlc on sight. A hea^^ and murderous toll has been 
taken of non-combatant passengers, belligerent 
and neutral, of crews, and of fishing folk. Clearly 
the President does not mean that the general 
course which the submarine war has taken has 
lifted it above criticism. He must mean that 
amongst these attacks there are certain cases 
which demonstrate the possibility of using the 
submarine in a civilised manner."" If we accept 
the law, as it stood before war began, there are, 
so far as our information goes, only two that can 
be brought into this category. On June 21 the 
Norwegian ship Venus was met 120 miles east of 
Aberdeen by a German submarine. She was 
stopped and her papers examined, when she was 
found to be carrying a cargo of Finnish butter 
and frozen salmon. The skipper was given the 
choice of throwing the cargo overboard or having 
the ship sunk, and he naturally sacrificed the 
cargo. The Venus was thereupon allowed to pro- 
ceed to Newcastle in safety. On July 15 a second 
Norwegian steamer— the Fe^a— had a similar ex- 
perience and also in the North Sea. She, too, 
was found to be laden with cases of frozen 
salmon, 800 casks of butter, and 4,000 cases of 
sardines. Here, again, the cargo was jettisoned 
and the ship allowed to proceed. In both in- 
stances, as in the case of the prizes taken by the 
Karlsruhe and the Eviden, the destruction was 
effected without capture or trial. It is hardly in 
" substantial accord " with accepted principles 
of regulated warfare that capture and trial 
should be waived. But in these two instances it 
can plausibly be argued that, according to Ger- 
man law, all traflSc was running blockade, that a 
German Court would have condemned the cargo 
and ship as well, and hence that the neutral 
gained, and did not lose, by the waiving of 
capture, detention, and trial. 
Is it to be believed that it is to these two 
events that the President alludes, when he says 
that the whole world has looked " with interest 
and increasing satisfaction " at the German 
demonstration that submarines can be used in 
their attacks on trade in accordance with the prin- 
ciples of civilised warfare? Are these the only 
new circumstances to which the old principles' 
must be accommodated? If so, one is tempted 
to say that the world is easily entertained and 
still more easily pleased. It seems a very small 
amount of virtue to an intolerable deal of piracy. 
The changes in the old rules will be small. 
