8 
LAND & WATER 
iNovcmbcr i6, 1916: 
too obsrure for it to be safe for America to take sides. 
We should deceive ourselves if we supposed tliat the ex- 
planatiou of this statement is to be found only in the 
Nuccess of German propatjanda. There is probably not 
in all America more than a handful of thinkin{< persons 
who condone the unprovoked invasion and the un- 
mitigated martyrdom of Belgium. Again, the sympathy 
with P'rance is not only sincere and profound, but almost 
universal. Had those two countries only been involved 
in the quarrel with German}', American condemnation 
hi Teutonic brutality would not only have been general 
and unanimous, but very likely public, official and 
national as well. But the whole thing is complicateil 
by the alliance of France and Russia, and by British inter- 
vention. America is entirely unconvinced that our 
motives in declaring war on Germany were chivalrous 
only. And to the Transatlantic world the ambitions of 
Russia appear notorious. The general opinion would 
seem to be, then, that while the war may actually have 
been caused by Germany's aggression, it has occurred in a 
world of effete monarchies and corrupt governments, 
long since debauched by imperial ambitions and dreams 
of conquest, and with these America has, and can have, 
no part nor lot at all. And this being the situation it is 
not a war in which the Crusading instinct could be given 
free play. Americans may have every sympathy with 
the victims of German oppression, and the American 
Government has done all it can to see that the princel\- 
generosity of its nationals shall reach the victims of that 
oppression. But in declining to accept their rescue as a 
national mission Mr. Wilson has undoubtedly acted as 
the nation, as a whole, would have wished him to act. 
I said just now that he had parted with Mr. Bryan and 
so dissociated himself from the peace at any price party, 
without moral or political loss. His re-election is a final 
proof that it is not this party that dominates America. 
The people have adopted and confirmed Mr. Wilson's 
attitude, and this was defined in his speeches to the two 
Houses of Congress before despatchmg the Sussex Note 
to BerUn in April last. This attitude might be defined 
as follows ; 
It is not America's business to put the European house 
in order. If European nations choose to fight, America 
must be reconciled to suffering the more obvious dis- 
advantages to which neutrals are subject, when their 
neighbours are at war. If bullets are flying, innocent 
onlookers may be hit, and no good purpose is served by 
resenting accidental casualties as if they were inten- 
tional acts of aggression. If then American ships arc 
sunk, American property wrongfully destroyed, A.merican 
lives lost or endangered, it is patience and forbearance 
that should mark the path of statesmanship. All of the 
belligerents are likely to do the neutrals some injury, 
and injuries should not be actively resented, unless the\- 
are of a character so intrinsically wicked as to be in- 
tolerable, or arc persisted in in a manner that shows the 
intention behind thorn to be deliberately hostile and 
insulting. America is actually strong enough to defend 
herself if attacked, potentially strong enough to defeat 
almost any power that persists in provoking her to a 
relentless war. If, therefore, a Power at war with others 
offends against America, it is a reasonable— and not an 
undignified — attitude to delay the final expression of 
resentment until it is clear that peaceful protests have 
finally failed. 
This has been the Wilson attitude since February 1915, 
and the Sussex note was its logical outcome. This was 
unanimously endorsed by Congress in April last, and has 
now been confirmed by the people's choice. Observe, it 
is a policy of patience and not a policy of surrender. It 
looks for peace, but not for peace at any price. It wishes 
resentment to be slow, but not to be impossible or for- 
bidden. How does its endorsement by the nation affect 
the world's war ? 
A New Phase 
WHien Germany replied to the American note on May 
4th I ventured, in these columns, on the proph^xy that 
the submarine campaign would be conducted in, accord- 
ance with the German undertaking, until the German 
position got so desperate that no action of America, one 
way or the other, could affect the issue. For some months, 
except in the Mediterranean, the submarine campaign 
relapsed to normal. But when the Presidential cam- 
paign seemed to tic the action of American statesmen 
until the issue was decided, Germany began the re- 
sumption of her old methods at sea. The curve ui 
destruction, and the number of outrages, rose steadily 
in August and September. In the first week of October 
came the insane adventure of f'5,} at Newport and 
Nantucket. . Before the end of the month there was the 
campaign against the Norwegian merchant navy, and 
now the whole situation is complicated by the sinking 
of the Marina, the Arabia and the Columbian. The 
provisions of the Sussex note have then been ignored to 
some purpose. 
In one respect the submarine war of the last two months 
has shown a "development entirely \\o\v\. When at the 
beginning of 1(^15 (iermany proclaimed the waters round 
Grejit Britain to be a war zone, and announced her in- 
tention of destroying, so far 'as she had the power to do 
so by torpedoes and mines, any neutral ship that entered 
it, she was of course, announcing her intention of com- 
mitting acts of war against any neutral that refused to 
be intimidated. An act of war is any injustice deliberately 
inflicted upon the subject. of another Power, whether it 
takes the form of an unjustifiable destruction of his pro- 
perty, or includes a threat to his life or well being. If 
such acts- are committed, if reparation is refused, if, in 
the grave cases of unlawful killing, the agent is left un- . 
))unished, it is usually automatic that a breach of friendly 
relations should follow and continue until the offender , 
makes amends. If such acts become numerous and co- 
ordinated, and are persisted in as part of a system of 
conduct,^ they are tantamount to a declaration of war. 
The nation that suffers them must then either bow to 
force majeure, or fight. Since February 1915, therefore, 
Germany has carried on a virtual war With all the 
neutrals., She has been quite impartial in her destruction 
of ships,' quite indifferent as to the nationality of the 
innocent sufferers whom she has killed. Holland, Den- 
mark, Sweden — which has lost over 50 ships sunk and 
100 sailors drowned— Greece and Spain have lost ships 
and property and subjects, in defiance of all law, and not 
a single one of them has been able to resent it, America, 
alone of the nations injured in this way, has ventured 
on public protests and threats. Norway alone has 
ventured upon action. 
Norway has forbidden all belligerent submarines to 
enter her ports or territorial waters. It is a prohibition 
that weighs heavily on Germany, for without the use of 
the western fiords and the inlets of the northern Murman 
coast, the campaign against the Archangel transports ■ 
must become almost impossible. And so in the case of 
Norway, the war, which Germany has so far waged in- 
differently upon all the neutrals alike, has taken a direct 
and specific turn and has become a concentrated war on 
that nation's shipping. Over 50 Norwegian ships were 
sunk in little more than half of October. It is all per- 
fectly, open and above board. There is no disguise about 
its purpose. The fact that the Norwegian action really 
IS identical with that adopted, amid much German 
applause, by Sweden in the spring, is brushed aside as 
quite irrelevant. For the effect of the Swedish rule was 
to exclude Russian submarines from threatening Ger- 
many's Baltic trade, and the effect of the Norwegian 
rule is to exclude the Germans from attacking Russian 
North Sea trade. There is no acknowledgment in Berlin 
that what is sauce for the Russian goose must be sauce 
for the German gander. Again, it is no answer that 
Norway has not gone so far as in the first days of the' war 
did Holland, which proclaimed the closing of her ports to 
all belligerent warships in any circumstances. Instead, 
the example of America, that laughed the Allied sug- 
gestions on this subject to scorn, is held up to Norway 
for imitation. And if Norway does not yield in this 
matter, she is told that the alternative is as much more 
war as Germany can make. 
This 15 to give a new turn to the organised 
•piracy that Germany devised for the confounding 
of the enemies created by her unprovoked attack. 
It IS a minor development that the doctrine of the 
war zone has been extended to include any 
ship, wherever found in all the world, that intends to 
enter the forbidden waters. The Blommersdijck, sunk 
hy L =,:, after the American destroyer Benham cleared the 
range for the submarine's torpedoes, had no cargo nor 
