Evening Post. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1916. A COMING CRISIS?

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 37, 14 February 1916, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1916. A COMING CRISIS?

The announcement of the German and Austrian Governments that henceforward enemy merchantmen will be treated as belligerents was not addressed to Great Britain or her Allies,. and is really of no great concern to any of them. It is almost exactly a year since the Allies, and especially Great Britain, were exposed to all the terrors that German "frightfulness" was able, to introduce into sea warfare. As from the ' 18th February, 1915, neutrals were warned that every/hostile merchant ship in British seas or in the Channel would be destroyed, regardless of danger to crew and passengers.- Neutrals were accordingly warned not to entrust passengers, crews, or goods -to British.' vessels, f.nd a plain intimation that even in their own vessels neutrals would not be safe was conveyed in the further statement that neutral ships would incur danger owingto Britain's misuse of neutral flags._ Except for the last point, the new warning to neutrals "is in closely parallel terms. Neutrals are .now informed that armed enemy merchantmen will be treated as belligerents from the Ist March, and are warned not to trust their persons or property on such vessels. The two essential distinctions between the present memorandum: and that of a year ago are to be found in the addition of-the word--, "anoed," and in the omission of any limitation to; t-he sphere of operations. Last year's programme of "fright-fulness" assumed the'semblance of a blockade, and the German Admiralty was graciously pleased to exempt certain parts of the North Sea from its provisions. It is true that these limitations have not been observed, though without, so far as we are aware, any formal extension of the danger zone. The Mediterranean has recently supplied the pirates of Germany with-a happier hunting ground than tbe English Channel or th). North Sea—a fact which has excited naive surprise among the Americans, who ascribe the "diplomatic triumph" of their President to his skill in affecting, the :German "frightfulness" with a change of heart.. "The torpedoing without warning of a French 'liner, with )ar._e loss of life, shows convincingly," wrote the Springfield Republican, "that the rule asserted by Germiny in her warfare around t-he British Isles is now being disregarded in the Mediterranean by tho Power responsible for these submarine operations." If had not occurred to this usually wide-awake authority to infer -that it wasinofc Fresident.-.Wilson'* elo- -

Ijuence, but the power of the British Navy, that was the real cause of the mitigation of the German programme in the narrow seas.

But the essential point in the new announcement is in the word "armed." It is only from the armed merchantmen of the Allies that neutrals are warned off. There is to be no local immunity for vessels of this kind, since they are added by a stroke of the German pen to the fleet of the belligerents and will be no more entitled to notice or consideration of any kind than a British warship. As we pointed out on Saturday, German magnanimity is writ large over the face of the memorandum. The crews'.of these uncommissioned warshipe might have been hanged as pirates, but Germany will waive the letter of the law and give them an honourable death by drowning instead. As this is exactly what she has been doing for the past twelve months with the crew of every British liner, tramp, or trawler that has come- within range of the torpedoes or the guns of her submarines, there is no. reason for either alarm' or gratitude in this latest display of German magnanimity. . Nor does there appear to be any reason for a -change of policy on the . part of British shipowners. The. chance of a . German submarine being able-to detect in the dark—or even in the daylight—that an enemy merchantman, is unarmed, and so according her crew,any higher privileges than the previous victims of these pirates * have received, does not seem rosy enough to justify the slightest weakening of the methods of defence. The real, inwardness of the announcement is as between Germany and the United States. Germany makes, or is about to make, certain concessions to the United States regarding the sinking of merchantmen, and then renders the concessions almost valueless by converting these vessels into warships. The news that comes to hand as we write shows that the gravity of the position is fully appreciated at Washington. The impossibility of distinguishing effectively between armed and unarmed merchantmen is said to. be recognised by the President himself. He is also faced with the probable rejection by the Allies of his proposals to them. Never since President Wilson succeeded in resisting the popular demand for war with Germany when the Lusitania was sunk has anybody supposed that under any conceivable conditions would he provoke such a war. But one of the messages that Colonel House is said to have brought home from Berlin is that Germany would follow up the breaMngoff of diplomatic relations by the United States with a declaration of war. Germany is evidently going to take the fullest possible advantage of the official assurance that tome nations are. too proud to fight.