DEFENSIVE ARMAMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16215, 28 April 1916, Page 4

DEFENSIVE ARMAMENT.

It is reported from Washington that a settlement between the United States and Germany is likely, and among the signs not to be ignored is the new American discovery that a merchant ship may be armed for defensive but not for offensive purposes. This definition of the law of the sea is so simple, so unassailable, that it is rather uurprising to rind that America has not been aware of it. Three months ago the State Department at Washington put forward the astounding claim that all merchant ships carrying arms were liable to be treated as warships. There was a suspicion at the time that America had been taking her maritime law from tiermany ; that by the subtle process of give and take Washington had given over to Berlin the right to make American interpretations of international custom. Merchant ships were being armed against submarine attack, and it was in the German interest that such armament should be prohibited. The American interpretation was so absurd that it was Mr. Wilson's own fault if onlookers regarded it as a weak acceptance of German dictation in the hope that such a concession would bring the Lusitania controversy to a peaceful close. Now, accompanying the suggestion of the settlement of another crisis, comes the announcement that America proposes to draw a fine distinction between defensive and offensive armaments. Apparently a captain who waits until he is attacked is to be considered a merchant seaman. I 3 the captain who gets in the first shot against a hostile submarine to be treated as a naval officer in command of a warship If this is to be the understanding Germany would, no doubt, be willing to waive some points to America. In its anxiety to come to a peaceful settlement with Germany the American State Department has apparently forgotten that the cause of the arming of British merchant ships is solely defensive. The new American definition, so plausible on the surface, appears when more closely examined to be only another German effort to put every merchant ship trading to American ports at the mercy of their submarines.