Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1916. PRESIDENT WILSON AND THE WAR.

Nelson Evening Mail, 14 November 1916, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1916. PRESIDENT WILSON AND THE WAR.

IN view of the re-election of President Wilson, his attitude to the war is of considerable importance. His conduct during the war has provoked very severe critic-, isc from Democrats as well as Republicans who have sympathised with the cause of the Allies and felt that America lias been- disgraced, in the eyes of the world by her President's mistakes. He has also incurred the hatred of the Gei'man.Americans by his attitude in the submarine controversy. How far he has really served the interests of the United States by his attempt to preserve absolute neutrality in the face of German violation of the laws of humanity, for which the President professed to stand, is the question- Mr W. Morton Fullerton answers in his book, "The American Crisis and the "War." ■>.

The history of the war, Mr Fullerton says, i.s a history of hesitation. The hesitations of the United States are not the least instructive of these; but they differ from all the rest save that of Italy., because she was not constrained to make a. decision by forces beyond her control. President Wilson's first decision was that America "must be impartial in thought as Avell as action." That was made a fortnight after the war started, and was repeated in substance when he made sis annual message to Congress in December. He still hoped that lie would 'be able to act as mediator, and though Belgium and North France had been trampled under foot, Hague conventions disregarded, and humanity outraged by the Germans, the President asked America, virtually not to see but to go on with its own business. He claimed that by so doing it would be preserving "the ancient principles of action" of the American Government and maintaining American influence.

The "ancient principles of action" were based on Washington's declaration of American neutrality in 1793., and Monroe's message to Congress in 1823. The latter embodies what is known as the Monroe doctrine, which, Mr Eutlerton holds, was intended as a formal notice to Europe that monarchical systems based on Divine right- would not be suffered to encroach upon any portion of the western hemisphere. Both Monroe and Jefferson, his adviser. wished to maintain a cordial friendship with Britain, and the intention, of the Monroe doctrine evidently was to lay down ?. combined -policv which Britain and the United' States were to follow on the continent of America, as against all other Powers. Tims, as Jefferson wrote to President Monroe, was "the mighty weight .of England brought into the scale o( free government" and "a whole continent was emancipated at one stroke." The essence of the Monroe doctrine was. to register a solemn- protest against "the, atrocious violation, of the rights of nations by the interference of anyone in the internal affairs of another."

If President Wilson followed the "ancient principles of action" he could have taken his stand on the Monroe doctrine and protested against Austria's assault on Servia and Germany's treatment of Belgium and Luxemburg:' He could also have protested with, greater weight against the German breach of the Hague Conventions which had been signed by America as w-ell as Germany. The 'Treaty of the Hague was part of American law. and America had a substernal interest in seeing that it was observed, though President Wilson did not see- it.

■What President Wilson did see and was greatly preoccupied with diuring the early stages of the war, according to Mr' Fullerton, was the fact that the United States was not a nation but a vast mixture of peoples of various .nationalities. Because of that fact he made his extraordinary, appeal for neutrality"!'iu thought and action." He knew that the average mau in America believed that the war had nothing to do with .him, .and approved; of any action the- President might take..to keep out of it. The war has revealed many thjngs to Americans. Amongst others were the operations or German, agent in thfir midst and the Kaiser's intentions

toward* the United Slates; but it particularly revealed that America, could not remain' .aloof from a great European crisis, ami tliat her destiny was iu the hands of a man who did not sou and could not understand what the crisis meant when it arose. Not for 18 months after August, 1914. did President W r ilson appear to realise what the situation meant, or that an assertion of intention to preserve neutral rights without a foree manifest and available which could support the assertion was likely to bring humiliation. Mr Fnilcrton admits that the President showed courage and ability in demanding of a Congress influenced by the German-Ameiiean vote that- it should take its stand with the President or the Kaiser, but. that- "heroic stand"' would not have been necessary if he had had vision and courage at the beginning of the war. As it is America faces its own crisis, as a nation which is not a nation but, "aa amalgam of unamalgamated peoples," with a great loss of prestige. "It is by no fault of the American people, but we have atrociously blundered, and we shall long pay dear for it. We have lost the respect of the nations, the same respect tha't Greece has lost wnthout being able to cite, as Greece can cite, any extenuating circumstances." The author condudes by repeating that the Monroe Doctrine was the broad base of an alliance between Britain and the United States for the preservation of liberty, and that upon the continuance of such an alliance' America.'? safety depends.