THE BLOCKADE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 33, 9 February 1915, Page 7

THE BLOCKADE

CONDEMNED AND CRITICISED PLAGIARISM OF NAPOLEON (Times and Sydney Sun Services.) LONDON, 7th February. The chairman of an important shipping company declares that the German threat of a blockade is an idle one. It can never be carried out, and none know it better than the Germans, who have been fruitlessly trying to establish it for five months. Sir Thomas Gibson Bowles (ex-member of the House of Commons, and author of "Maritime Warfaie,"' "Sea Law and Sea Power") says that the Kaiser has made an cxtiemely weak and foolish plagiarism of Napoleon's Berlin and Milan decrees of a hundred years ago. The New York papers describe the blockade warning as a crime of the high 'seas, as new evidence of the desperation of the Germans, and as playing with fire. The Times Washington correspondent says that there is not the slightest sign that the German bluff will succeed. Philadelphia, New York, and Boston announce that no sailings have been cancelled. Evei-ywhere confidence is expressed in the Biitish Flpet. It is felt that Germany has blundered, and by a few strokes of the_ pen has obliterated the impression which propagandists have been diligently raising on behalf of Germany, and created an unexpected and favourable atmosphere for the sottlemcnt of Anglo-American trade difficulties. The New York Sun gays:—" While it is of the greatest importance that America should hold aloof from the war. it will be her duty to notify Germany that any attempt to interfere with American commerce in any zone will be resented with all our resources."