LAND AND KiATER 
September 11, 1915. 
IS THE BLOCKADE OVER? 
By A H. POLLEN. 
.. ...kisration M censored, and takes a* 
,. .«.,d.nce w..h tbe re,Mlr.«en„ «. .he P«s. Bureau. «bicb doe. -ot objec. U ,b. pubUcatlon 
responsibility lor the correctness ol the statements. 
THE GERMANS AND RIGA. 
IN spite of what is apparently rather grave 
news from the Baltic, the sinking of the 
Hesperian and its bearing on the sub- 
marine blockade seem to be the naval issues 
of the moment. To this matter, therefore, 1 
shall devote the bulk of my space to-day. But 
the other news calls for some remark It is 
premature to analyse the bearing of the German 
claim to have occupied the Gulf of Riga until 
TFe know the strength in which it is held and the 
character of the counter-stroke which the Russian 
Navy is doubtle.ss preparing. In the meantime 
it is sufficient to remind the reader that it is one 
thing for German cruisers to enter, and, indeed, 
to hold, fhe Gulf of Riga and a different thing 
altogether to establish safe communications 
between Riga and the Gerijian ports. As we saw 
a week or two ago, the objective of the German 
Navy is not the possession of the Port ot Koga 
but the making of it into an advance base, -tor 
without such a base the supplying of an army 
large enough lor a successful thrust at Petrograd 
will be, if not impossible, at any rate so much 
more difficult that the face of the thrust— and 
at this stage everything turns upon pace*-must 
be most seriously affected. It is not, then, the 
possession of Riga but the command of the sea 
between Riga, Koenigsberg, and Danzig that 
matters. The Russian Navy has already shown 
what it can do in the way of hostilities in the 
limited field of the Gulf itself. In suitable con- 
ditions these attacks can be repeated. And it is 
probably well within the demands of right 
strategy that the main forces should be reserved 
until Germany shows signs both of being able to 
obtain Riga and of using it for sea transport. 
Command of the Baltic cannot be established 
without battle, if the Russians so decide, and 
Riga cannot be used for the safe transport of 
troops, munitions, or supplies until the Russian 
rieet is either defeated, blockaded, or otherwise 
'demobilised. The claim of the Germans, then, to 
have entered and now to hold the Gulf may, and 
probably does, mean something very short of their 
possessing any such sea ascendency as will make 
Riga of paramount value in the main campaign. 
In the Black Sea our allies have met with 
certain marked successes. There has been an 
engagement between two Russian destroyers and 
the Hamidieh and two large torpedo-boats. The 
fTurkish squadron was escorting four coal trans- 
ports and a barque. The Russian destroyers 
immediately engaged them. A running fight 
ensued, and the Hamidieh and the torpedo-boats 
were driven off and the transports sunk. In the 
Sea of Marmara further submarine successes are 
recorded. From the Adriatic and elsewhere there 
iz no naval news at all. 
CASE OF THE "HESPERIAN." 
The interest of the sinking of the Hesperian 
consists in this. Does it alter the diplomatic 
position between the United States and Ger- 
many? And to answer this question it is neces- 
sary to define as precisely as possible what that 
position was wheA, on September 5, an outward 
bound liner was sunk 135 miles soutli-west of 
Queenstown. It stood briefly ^s follows : On 
July 25 President Wilson dispatched his final 
Note to Berlin on the situation created by the 
murder of American citizens in the tolaha and 
Lnsitania, and the attacks on the Gulflight and 
the Gushing. In this Note he laid down for the 
guidance of the German Foreign Office that the 
faw of civilised war required that non-combatant 
ships should be visited and searched before being 
sur&, and that no ship should be sunk without 
providing for the safety of all the non-com- 
batants on board. And he went on to say that 
if Germany continued to act m defiance ot these 
principles, and by so doing should bring Ameri- 
can lives into jeopardy, every such act vvould be 
regarded by the United States as deliberate y 
unfriendly." To this Note Germany sent no reply 
in words. Her reply in act has been as follows. 
Between July 25 and September 5 fifty-mno 
British and thirty-three neutral ships have been 
sunk in the war area. Very few details are now 
published about any of these proceedings. But 
it appears that, in at least fourteen cases, either 
that the ship was attacked by gunfire or tor- 
pedoed without warning being given, or lives 
were lost while passengers and crews were being 
hurried into the boats or through the loss of 
boats. In one case it was the wife of a shijVs 
officer who thus perished. In the great majority 
of these cases it was doubtless conjectured — and 
the event has proved it was correctly conjectured 
— that no American citizens would be on board the 
ships subjected to this treatment. But in the 
Arabic, sunk on August 19, there were several 
Americans on board, and two of them perished; 
and in the Hesperian there were apparently two 
Americans on board, but seemingly neither 
perished. In only two out of these fourteen cases, 
therefore, did there exist the circumstances which 
brought these exhibitions of German policy within 
the definition of " deliberately unfriendly " acts 
against America. 
But it must be realised that it was only by a 
mere matter of chance that none of the remaining 
twelve cases could officially be brought to the 
notice of the United States Government. There 
are Americans serving in many British and 
neutral ships as engineers, mechanics, electri- 
cians, and seamen. This is a state of things per- 
fectly well known to the German Government. In 
instructing the submarine commanders, there- 
fore, to continue torpedoing on si^ht, after the 
receipt of the Note of July 25, the Germans were 
deliberately running the risk of acting not on 
two, but on a very large number of occasions, in 
a manner which they had President Wilson's 
word for knowing would be resented as un- 
friendly. The first point, then, that must be 
quite clearly kept in mind is this. For a period 
