WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1916. THE GERMAN' CHANCELLOR AND THE BRITISH BLOCKADE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, Issue LXXII, 25 October 1916, Page 4

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1916. THE GERMAN' CHANCELLOR AND THE BRITISH BLOCKADE.

Careful readers of the cable messages concerning the war will have observed that the German Chancellor (Herr yon Bethniaun Hollvreg) has two ways of handling Britain's blockade of Ger-

many. To his own people lie speaks of it contemptudusly, as calling; for nothing but scorn and laughter from the ' Germans themselves. What he says to i them is in the ,v.em of the Kaiser's shoddy sneer at General French's "contemptible little ' army," which proved in itself and its developments a formidable antagonist to the Kaiser and his ruthless schemes for destroying the liberties of Europe. As it happens, too, Britain's blockade of Germany is proving equally effective, notwithstanding Herr yon Hollwegfs ponderously jocular attempts to belittle it in the eyes of his gullible countrymen. The wellknown naval expert, Mr Archibald Hurd, clearly sets forth this fact in an article in the last number of the Fort- , nightly Review. Mr Hurd shows/ that the blockade of Germany is now as effective as we can hope, to make it, because ''the constrictive influence of the British Fleet is (supplemented by diplomatic' and commercial action, with the result tliafc Germany is on something les3 than ordinary prison diet." To this he adds that the position is such that Germany has .even placed her neighbors on regulation fare, and that "their supplies are measured out to them with scrupulous care." Mr Hurd says, too, ,that in thus carrying out a blockade which : legitimately inflicts th.c maximum- amount of injury on Germany, Britain has sacrificed no friendship with those neutrals who have an interest in trading with Germany, nptwifchstandiiig ; the" 'war; which surely proves that ,ouir statesmen and diplomatists have carried out this part o f the nation's programme with conspicuous success. /. Anyway,; the thoroughness of the blockade, and its necessarily restrictive effects on Germany's ire-, sources and staying powers can b e no, ; laughing mattier for the people of Ger- > many, in spite of the ill-timed, levity with which Herr yon Hollweg occasionally refers to it in his speeches in, the Reichstag, fit fact, when he turns his back to his own people and ad- ■ dresses neutral countries on the subject, he, treats it as a singularly serious -.matter; and charges' Britain with gross inhumanity and disregard for international principle and precedent on account of her methods and severity in connection with the blockade. Here, as Mr Hurd says^ Germany, through her Chancellor, contends that "though her armies may overrun Belgium,' France and Russia, spreading death in their trail and* taking the food of the inhabitants of ithe occupied territory, she ■ should not suffer from the iction of the fleets' of the belligerents; in other words, she declares that she should be permitted to draw t-trength from the seas in order that she may replenish her military power." But this is sheer nonseiase or worse in view of the actual facts. Germany has, since the beginning of the war, followed a '^liberate policy of sinking vessels bearing food io British ports, though her naval ineffectiveness has necessarily limited her power to injure in this connection. Yet she has had th c wish and the will and has never ceased to seek a through her submarines. She even formally announced early last year a crusade of destruction against British commerce, and yet she now complains oecause Britain treats her as she had r©»lu»iy determined to treat Britain. As to international principle and precedent in the matter.. Herr yon Hollweg's own predecessors in the Chancellorship have upheld, as an international principle, the justice of such a course as that which Britain has followed in blockading Germany. Bismarck once declared a blockasde to be "wholly justifiable, because it was a measure which had for. its object the shortening of a war by increasing the difficulties of the enemy." Bismarck's successor, Count Caprivi, expressed the sam.e view -with more elaboration when he said, "it i s more necessary to cut off an enemy's trade in proportion as he is dependent on that trade"—a, dictum which decidedly justifies Britain's present blockade of Germany. Nor is this all; Count Caprivi went still further when he said: "if during the siege of Paris someone had equipped a train with foodstuffs for the Parisians the train would simply have been stopped. Exactly the same happens at sea. If someone equipped a ship to supply the wants of the .enemy, then the other side* would try to capture those supplies, even if they con- t si&ted only of foodstuffs. And I must ii say that if States act in this way they \ use only fch.e means which war gives lr. them." This/leaves -Herr yon Holl- -

weg without a particle of justification for his denunciation of Britain's action in blockading Germany." His wails and complaints are indeed sadly out of keep- j ing with his country's own traditions '■ and settled principles in the matter, which were correctly set forth by Bismarck when he declared, as a settled international principlej that "the population, of an enemy country must be made to-suffer by the war in order to render them more disposed to peace." Herr yon. Hollweg's wails and complaints about the British blockade, therefore, receive no support from the practice of his predecessors or from Germany's traditional policy in the maiter.