"HIGH AND SACRED"

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 94, 20 April 1916, Page 7

"HIGH AND SACRED"

RIGHTS OF HUMANITY

GERMAN SUBMARINE METHODS.

The /following summary sets out the steps leading up to the present trouble between the United States ' and Germany : — The German Admiralty on 4th February, 1915, proclaimed a war zone around Great Britain, announcing that every enemy merchant ship found therein would be destroyed "without its always being possible to avert the dangers threatening the crews and passengers on that account.'' The text of this proclamation was made known by the American Ambassador in Berlin (Mr. Gerard) on 6th February. Four days later the United States Government sent to Germany a Note of protest, which has come to be known as the "strict, accountability note." After pointing out that a serious infringement of American rights on the high seas was likely to occur, should Germany carry out her war-zone decree in the manner she had proclaimed, it declared: —■".If.such a deplorable situation should arise, the Imperial German Government can hardly appreciate that the Government of the United States would be constrained to hold the Imperial German Government to a strict accountability for such acts of their naval authorities and to take any steps' it might be necessary to take to safeguard American lives and property, and to secure to American citizens the full enjoyment of their acknowledged .rights on the high seas." The war-zone decree went into effect on 18th February. Two days later despatches were cabled to Ambassador Page at London and to Ambassador Gerard at Berlin suggesting that a modus vivendi be entered into by England and Germany by which German submarine warfare and sowing of mines at sea might be abandoned if foodstuffs were allowed to reach the German civil population under American Consular inspac- ' tion. BRITAIN'S ACTION. Germany replied to this on Ist March, expressing her willingness to act favourably on the proposal. The same day tlie British Government stated that because of the war-zone decree of the German Government the British Government must take measures to prevent commodities, of all kinds from reaching or leaving Germany. On 15th March the British Government flatly refused the modus vivendi suggestion. On 4th April Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador at Washington, submitted a memorandum to the United States Government regarding GermanAmerican trade and the exportation of arms. Mr. Bryan replied to the memorandum on 21st April, insisting that the United States was preserving her strict status of neutrality according to the accepted laws of nations. On 7th May the C'unard steamship Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine in the, war-zone, as decreed by Germany, and more than 100 American citizens perished, with 1000 other persons on board. "INDISPUTABLE EIGHTS." Thereupon, on 13th May, the United States transmitted to the German Government a Note on the subject of this loss. It said:—'■American citizens act within their indisputable rights in.tak-' ing their ships and in travelling wherever their legitimate business calls them upon the high seas, and exercise those rights in what should be the well justified -confidence that • their lives will not be endangered by acts done in clear violation of universally acknowledged international obligations, and certainly in the confidence that their own Government will sustain them in the exercise i of their rights." | [ This Note concluded : —"Tho Imperial Government will not expect tho Government of the United States to omit any word or any act .necessary to the performance of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the" United States' and its citizens of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment." i Germany replied to this Note on 29th May. It stated that ft had heard that the Lusitania was an armed naval ship, which had attempted to use "American passengers as a protection, and that, anyway, such passengers should not have been present. It added: —"The German commanders are consequently no longer in a, position to observe the rules of capture otherwise usual and with which they invariably complied before this." UNPARALLELED IN MODERN WARFARE. .; To the foregoing the United States maintained in a Note sent to the German Government on 9th June that the Lusitania was not an armed vessel and that she had sailed in accordance with the 'aws of the United States, and that "only her actual resistance ,to capture or refusal to stop when ordered to do so could have afforded the commander of the submarine any justification for so much as putting the lives of those on board the ship in jeopardy.". "Whatever be the other facts regarding the Lusitania, the principal fact is that a great steamer, primarily and chiefly :i conveyance for passengem, and carrying more than a thousand souls who had no part or lot in the conduct of the war, I was torpedoed and sunk without so much j as a challenge or a warning, and that men, women, and children were sent to their death in circumstances unparalleled in modern warfare. The fact that more than one hundred American citizens were among thogf who perished made it the duty of the Government of the Uimed States to speak of these things and once more, with solemn emphasis, to cull the attention of the Imperial German Government to the grave responsibility which the Government of the .United States conceives that it has incurred in this tragic occurrence, and to the indisputable principle upon which that responsibility rests. PUTTING LIVES IN JEOPARDY. "The Government of the United States," continues the Note, is contending for something much greater than mere rights of property or j/iivileges of commerce. It is contending for nothing less high and sacred than the rights of humanity, which every Government honours'itself in respecting, and which no Government is justified in resigning on behalf of those under its care and authority. Only her actual resistance to capture or refusal to stop when ordered to do so for the purpose of visit could have afforded the commander of the submarine any justification for so much as putting the lives of those on bord the ship in jeopardy. This principle.the Government of the United Slates understands the explicit instructions issued on 3rd. August. 1914, by the. Imperial German Admiralty to its commanders at sea to have recognised and embodied, as do the naval codes of nil other nations, and upon it evory traveller and seaman had n." right to depend. It is upon this principle of humanity as well as i>[:on the lnw founded upon this principle that the United States must stand. .GERMANY'S OFFER. Exactly one month later, on 9th July, came Germany's reply. Its preamble praised the United States for its humane attitude and said that Germany was fully in accord therewith. Something, it ;i?serted, should be done, for "the case of the Lusitania shows with horrible clearness to what jeopardising of human lives the manner of conducting war em-

ployed by our adversaries leads," and that under certain conditions .which it set forth, American ships might have safe passage through the war zone, or even some enemy ships flying the American flag. It continued : —"The Imperial Government, however, confidently hopes the American Government will assume to guarantee that these vessels have no contraband on board, details of arrangements for the unhampered passage of these vessels to be agreed upon by the naval authorities of both sides.'"' "IMMUTABLE PRINCIPLES." On 24th July the Government of the United Stares replied:—"The rights, of neutrals in time of war are based upon principle, not upon expediency, and the principles 'arc immutable. It is the duty and obligation of belligerents to find a way io adapt the new circumstances to them. The Government of the United States, while not indifferent to the friendly spirit in which it is made, cannot accept the suggestion of the Imperial German Government that certain vessels be designated and. agreed upon, which shall be free on the seas now illegally prescribed. The very agreement would, by implication, subject other vessels to illegal attack, and would be a curtailment, and therefore an abandonment of tho principles for which f.his Government contends, and which in times of calmer counsels every nation would concede as of course. . In the meantime, the very value which this Government sets upon the long and unbroken friendship between the people and Government of the United States, and the people and Government of the German nation, impels it to press very solemnly upon the Imperial German Government the necessity for a scrupulous observance of neutral lights in this critical matter. Friendship itself prompts it to say to the Imperial Government that repetition by the commanders of German naval vessels of acts in contravention of those rights must be regarded by the Government of the United States, when they affect American citizens, as deliberately unfrieudly." GERMAN COMMENT ON MR. WILSONS NOTE. Commenting or. this reply of the United States, Captain Perseus, naval critic of tho Berlin Tageblatt, snid that the note "expresses a determination to rob us of the weapon to which we pin the greatest hopes in the war on England," and indicates that the "pro-Bri-tish trouble-makers have finally won over the President." Count von Reventlow, in the Tages Zeitung, cornplains of the Note'.s "far' too threatening and peremptory tone." The Kreuz Zeitung said : "We arc trying hard to resist .the thought that ' the United States, with its standpoint as expressed in the Note, aims at supporting England," and Georg Bernhard. of the Vossische Zeitung, believes that yielding to President Wilson's argument means "the weakening of Germany to the enemy's advantage," adding that anyone who has this,in mind "is net neutral, but ■ takes sides ugainst Germany and for her enemies." Notwithstanding President Wilson's clear ■ statement of Americans position and the rights of neutrals, the practice of German submarines sinking merchant and passenger ships without warning has continued up to the present time. President Wilson, as stated in a cable message published on 17th April, in a note to Germany cites sixty-five instances of vessels torpedoed in' violation of American rights. The remarkable manifesto from 500 of the most prominent men in the United States, referred to in a cable message published on Tuesday should strengthen the President's hands in severing diplomatic relation;; with Germany. Tho manifesto, which is signed, amongst others, by judges, bishops, and university professors, expresses sympathy with the Allies, and horror and detestation of Germany's methods.