FIRST ARMED AMERICAN LINER RUNS THE BLOCKADE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16500, 28 March 1917, Page 7

FIRST ARMED AMERICAN LINER RUNS THE BLOCKADE.

AMERICA REFUSES TO NEGOTIATE WITH GERMANY. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. WASHINGTON, March 26. The St. Louis, the first armed American liner to sail from New York for Britain, has arrived Bafely. The American Consul . at Rotterdam, reports that the American steamer Healdtou was carrying relief supplies for Belgium and was following the German safety lane when she was torpedoed. Some of the crew were- burned to death in the vessel ; others froze to death when exposed for hours in weather several degrees below zero. The United States, replying to Germany's request to reconstruct the German-American treaty of 1799, informed Berlin that further undertakings on Germany's part were useless. The Note added that the United States Government was seriously considering whether Germany's flagrant violations had not already cancelled this treaty, as well as that of 1828.

The St. Louis is of 11,629 tons, and is owned by the International Mercantile Marine Company, of New York.

, On February 11 Mr. Franklin, manager of the International Mercantile Marine Company, stated that no ships of his lino would leavo New York for any port in the Prussian submarine zone until the United States Government saw fit to provide guns and gun crews for defence. "As far as the American Lino is concerned, we have done our best," said Mr. Franklin, " in every direction to procure tho necessary guns and gun crews, but it does not seem possible to us that private corporations will bo able properly to equip their ships with defensive armament. It looks as though the American Line steamships will not be able to leave at all unless tho Government decides either to provide convoys or to put on each of our vessels the guns and trained gunners essential to the safety of passengers and crew. The French and British ships are steaming to and from this port with indifference to any orders from Germany because they are armed. But the American Lino has not even one gun with which to protect itself."

The text of the explanatory and supplemental clauses proposed by Germany as a protocol to the Prussian-American treaty of 1799 shows that Germany hoped to amplify tho treaty so as to place Germans in America and Americans in Germany in caso of war on exactly the same footing regarding all property rights, freedom from detention and concentration camps, or sequestration of property, that is applicable to other neutrals. Nationals of cither country might remain fully undisturbed in the'other country as long as they please, and not for the nine months period provided in the treaty. Merchant ships of either nation might not be seized or driven to sea unless under a safe conduct to their home ports through all possible enemies, and their captains and crews may not be mado prisoners.