October 12, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
II 
so far unverified. It is reported, on the authority of the 
mate of the Nantucket Hghtship, that three submarines 
were at work. Another story says five. Admiral 
Cleaves is said to be confident that all these ships were 
sunk by t753 only. There is another report that the si.\ 
ships enumerated do not complete the tale of loss. Three 
others, so far unidentified, are said to have been sunk 
also. Finally, there is no news of the crew of the King 
stonian, and it is premature to say that no lives were 
sacrificed. For one day's work it was a pretty effective 
piece of blockading. A submarine is really wonderfully 
effective when it has unarmed ships, and plenty of them 
to deal with, and there are no disturbing cruisers, de- 
stroyers or patrol boats to guard against. 
These operations, we are assured on the authority of 
Mr. Daniels, have been carried through without any 
breach of international law. Perhaps this distinguished 
authority has given his opinion in the conviction that 
there are no international laws now left for submarines 
to break. For had these events stood alone as examples 
of Germany's sea manners, had they occurred in the first 
week of the war, it is difficult to conceive any conduct 
more utterly at variance with the principles both of inter- 
national comity and of the rights of neutrals as then 
agreed. Let us take a few of the undisputed points. 
First the Captain of the Straihdcnr, sunk at 6 o'clock, 
says that his ship was attacked without warning. If 
a snip is torpedoed at sea and none of those on board are 
killed by the explosion, their escape must be attributed 
to chance. Those who fired the torpedo were taking 
the risk of killing several. The act itself then is homicidal, 
if not in intention, certainly in its content. There was 
no reason for supposing that the Strathdene was a govern- 
ment ship. It was a private ship engaged in its legitimate 
business as a carrier at sea, and by international law it 
was only liable to hostile attack if it resisted capture. 
And short of resistance it was only liable to capture in 
conditions that assured the safety of the civilians on 
board. In the sinking of the Strathdene, then, two prin- 
ciples of international law were without question violated. 
But the Strathdene also had the right of carrying neutral 
passengers, and neutral passengers had the right to travel 
in the Strathdene, with the absolute assurance of exactly 
the same immunity of life, limb and property as if they 
had been travelling in a neutral ship. In attacking as 
she did, therefore, L'53 was risking, not only the offences 
against international law and humanity to which I have 
already drawn attention, but a gross outrage on the 
sovereignty of any neutral state, whose subject might 
have chosen this ship for a passage to Europe. 
The case of the Blommersdijk is a stronger one still. It 
is exactly parallel to that of the Palemhang, which it will 
be remembered was torpedoed last March immediately 
outside a Dutch harbour, when on her way to the Dutch 
East Indies. The Blommersdijk, like the Palemhang, had 
no taint of belligerency about her af all. She was a 
neutral ship bound from one neutral harbour to another. 
Under no conceivable law of contraband or blockade 
could her orderly capture have been defensible. The 
act then was not only sheer piracy but absolutely sense- 
less piracy. It is only by an extreme straining of accep- 
ted international law that the right can be conceded to 
Germany of sinking the ships that might, if brought 
before a properly constituted prize court, be adjudged 
legitimate captures. And there is no reading of inter- 
national law that would bring the Blom^nersdijk within 
this class. How then can Mr. Daniels say that no breach 
of law has been committed ? except, of course, that we 
allow there exists no law to break. 
The notes that passed between Washington and Berlin 
first over the threat, and then over the execution of the 
submarine campaign, have undoubtedly left the rights 
of belligerents and the rights of neutrals in a state en- 
tirely different from what they were before the war. 
But wide and, as it seems to me, disastrous as the 
American concessions have been, President Wilson has, 
nevertheless, insisted on the rights of humanity being 
maintained. And he certainly does not admit that 
international law is dead. His words to Congress in 
April last are on both points entirely unambiguous. It 
>vas demonstrated, he said, that submirine warfare could 
:iot be conducted " in accordance witli what the (iovcrn- 
.Tient of the linited States must consider the sacred and in- 
disputable rights of international law and the universally 
recognised dictates ot humanity." And he had accord- 
ingly deemed it his duty to inform Berlin that " the 
Government of the United States is at last forced to 
the conclusion that unless the Imperial German Govern- 
ment should now immediately declare and effect the 
abandonment of its present methods .of warfare against 
passenger and freight carrying vessels," that America 
could have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations 
altogether. Now it is obvious that the work of ^^53 
is indistinguishable from the earlier performances of her 
predecessors. It is not war conducted in accordance 
with sacred rights and dictates. It is directed both 
against freight carriers and passenger ships. And 
most significant of all, if no lives were lost, if, that is to 
say, there was no fatal and murderous brcfich of the 
" universally recognised dictates of humanity," it was 
because the destroyers and patrol vessels of the United 
States navy discharged for the German submarines those 
necessary services in the rescue of passengers and crews, 
which President Wilson, in his April ultimatuiji, insisted 
that the German navy must itself afford. 
Our Two Questions 
We come back then to our two questions, what will the 
British Admiralty and the American Government do ? 
An American Government might, one would think, feel 
just a little humihated at having to request the British 
Admiralty to resume its protection of the American 
trade routes. It is, of course, quite aware that the fabu- 
lous exports of the United States that have brought 
fabulous wealth to the American people, have succeeded 
in doing this solely because the British navy has pro- 
tected those exports against hostile interference. Will it 
now be reduced to urging that this protection shall be 
extended nearer home ? Manifestly the American des- 
troyers are not taking a hand in this protection. They 
have done a most humane work in saving the un- 
happy women, children and babies, who were sent adrift 
from a liner at 4.30 in the afternoon and were not picked 
up till midnight. It is a task that is always congenial to 
brave men. But then they might be employed not in pre- 
venting the worst consequences of crime, but in preventing 
the crime itself. 
Germany, perhaps, holds views about America that 
are not ours. The presidential election takes place in 
about three weeks' time. We have been told that the 
peace-at-any price vote is large, that it is mostly demo- 
cratic in sentiment, and that if Mr. Wilson loses it he 
loses everything. Does the Chancellor think he will sub- 
mit to anything? The Neiv York Times, I observe, says, 
that if the German Government wants " to arouse the 
American people to the dangerous state of feeling that 
possessed them after the destruction of Lusitania," 
it has chosen a method perfectly adapted to that end. 
The Times, perhaps, overlooks the fact that Germany 
did not find that sentirrtent so very dangerous after all. 
What if Bernstorff has told his Government that, if only 
the blockade is not too prolonged, and not too murderous, 
the submarines can, at least till the election is over, 
terrorise American trade with perfect safety ? If the thing 
is kept up only for a week, von Bethmann-HoUweg's diffi- 
culties with thg Reichstag will all be got over. The 
German public will be inspirited and happy, England 
irritated and sore, and the Alliance made to tremble 
for the safety of their precious freights. Of course it 
would lead to fresh American protests and to more elo- 
quent notes, to a new, and, on the face of things, a more 
complete German surrender. But the surrender would 
be lost in diplomatic verbiage and the real assets would 
remain. To the German Government in short, to whom 
the path of frightfulness is sheer necessity, Bernstorff 
has probably explained it is a path of safety also. 
Such may very well be the genesis of this last flouting 
of all the commandments of the sea. It has put the 
American Government into a difficult, and in some 
respects into a ridiculous position. It is, therefore, a 
triumph of German ill humour. But it remains to be 
seen if it will prove to be good policy. The man that 
laughs last has a proverbial advantage. And America 
is not without a gift for repartee. It will be no joke for 
Germany to realise that Mr. Wilson is not a man to put 
electioneering prospects before public duty. And, after 
the votes of Congress in the soring, Mr. Wilson will have 
a free hand. Arthuk Pollen 
