August 28, 1915. 
LAND A J\ D .WATER 
" illegal and inhuman " acts should have been 
authorised by the " great Government " of 
Germany. That Government was adjured to dis- 
avow these horrors and to cease from a campaign 
in which the methods of civilised war were im- 
possible. Merchant vessels could not be visited nor 
searched by a submarine, nor taken as a prize ; nor 
could non-combatant passengers be properly safe- 
guarded if vessels, after they had been searched, 
were sunk upon the high seas. To turn them 
adrift in open boats was a " poor measure " of 
protection, and even this had been made im- 
possible in the four instances quoted. The whole 
thing was a violation of " fairness, reason, justice, 
and humanity." But American citizens had gone 
to sea confident that their lives would not be en- 
dangered, and confident that their Government 
would sustain them in the exercise of their rights. 
He therefore solemnly called upon Germany to 
disavow her acts, to give assurances against their 
repetition. Failing these, America would '" omit 
nothing necessary to the discharge of its sacred 
duty ■' of protecting its ships and its natiunals. 
Germany had not replied to the February 
protest. Her reply now w;-.^, a rigmarole tissue 
of lies — completely disposed of by Mr. Wilson in 
his next Note — that the Lusit'inia was not a pas- 
senger ship at all, but an undisguised war vessel. 
Mr. Wilson rejoined again that all the allegations 
about the Lusitania were lalse, and reiterated his 
former position. But in Germany's second Note 
she disavowed nothing of the acts of submarine 
commanders, gave no assurances that such acts 
would not be repeated, and reiterated her 
right and intention to continue as she had begun, 
and she met the Amerita^ threat by the insolent 
offer to give safe conduct to American passengers 
if they would travel in ships that Germany, if 
necessary, would supply ! 
When one re-reads these letters and Notes it 
is almost unbelievable that they can be addressed 
by one great Power to another, and that no 
national action should have followed. Far from 
national action, Mr. Wilson in his Note of July 
24 — observe, by the way, that Germany had not 
yet been held to " strict accountability " for the 
murders of March 28 or of May 7 — Mr. Wilson 
made one more effort to induce Germany to adopt 
at any rate a semblance of civilised conduct. He 
made the great concession of waiving any safe- 
guarding of passengers beyond putting them into 
open boats. Instead of this being a " poor 
measure of safety," as he had described it on 
May 15, it was now a procedure which " the 
whole world had been admiring with increasing 
interest and satisfaction " ! If Germany wou Id 
confine herself to sinking only the ships that she 
had searched, she would have the American bless- 
ing. But if she would not accept this concession 
and the limitations it imposed, if ships carry- 
ing Americans were once more sunk on 
sight, and American lives endangered, then 
America would at last be driven to the point 
of regarding such an act as " deliberately un- 
friendly." The sinking of the Leelanaw, whose 
crew were set adrift in boats after the ship was 
searched, led to no American protest, and it is 
clear that my interpretation of the Note of July 
24 is correct. But there seems no way of bring- 
ing the sinking of the Arabic into this category, 
so that America seems bound to take the action 
which is imposed on those who, having the power 
to resent it, are the victims of " deliberate un- 
friendliness." 
Readers of Land and Water will remember 
that so early as May — as soon, that is, as ^Ir. 
Wilson had decided that America would vindi- 
cate not only the rights of American ships to 
enter the danger zone, but of American citizens 
to enter it in the merchant vessels of belligerent 
nationality — I pointed out that a break between 
America and Germany was inevitable. It was 
obvious that the Americans could not ultimately 
recede from their position, and equally obvious 
that if Germany accepted the American de- 
mands the submarine campaign would lose all its 
terrors for us, and consequently all its profit for 
Germany. For the Note of May 15 seemed not 
only to forbid the sinking of vessels on sight 
but the sinking of vessels at all where the open 
boat was the only safeguard to passengers' lives. 
When this was waived, the scope of the sub- 
marine campaign which America ■ would allow 
was twenty times as great as that which seemed 
permissible in May. 
WHY WAS THE "ARABIC " SUNK? 
Is it possible that it was this concession by 
Mr. Wilson that finally convinced Germany that 
there was no limit to the indignitios that could 
be put upon the Washington Government? The 
contrast between the American threats and the 
American inaction, the resignation of Mr. 
Brj'an, the curiously abrupt tone of the Notes 
to Great Britain — all these things may have made 
it appear that Mr. Wilson's fine phrases— and 
these perhaps lost something in translation — 
would never in any event be translated into action. 
If this is not the explanation jof the sinking of 
the Arabic it is difficult to find any other. The 
choice seems to lie between insanity and an im- 
pending collapse. 
If the Russian campaign were literally 
Germany's final effort ; if, bankrupt in money and 
in men, she had sent out her reserves to be 
expended in a final effort to get a resounding 
military success, not with a view to finishing the 
campaign victoriously, but with a view to ending 
it by a triumphal, if useless, exhibition of military 
prowess, then to force America into belligerency 
and forthwith to admit her incapacity to fight 
the whole world in arms, might, in fact, prove to 
be a high flight of statesmanship. The Allies, 
suddenly relieved from the obligation of further 
sacrifices, might, and probably would, consent to 
terms ten times as generous as those they could 
impose if they had first to inflict a military 
defeat. America, called at the last moment into 
the war, would at any rate have a status for sug- 
gesting to her Allies a policy of moderation 
greater than the sufferings they have endured at 
the hands of Germany would incline them spon- 
taneously to propose. 
No such collapse as this is shown to be immi- 
nent or likely, or perhaps possible. Still, it is 
extraordinarily significant that Dr. Helfrich, 
in putting the new loan before the Reichstag, 
should openly have admitted that Imperial Ger- 
many is bankrupt unless it can make its enemies 
bear the whole burden of this war. For no one out 
of Bedlam can think the imposition of such in- 
demnities possible. There is a sensational report 
from Amsterdam tliat before this statement was 
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