WAR AGAINST NEUTRALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16765, 4 February 1918, Page 4

WAR AGAINST NEUTRALS.

The latest invasion of Spanish rights in the sinking of the steamer Giralda has been followed by a demand for reparation within forty-eight hours. Spain has suffered greatly from the submarine warfare. She has lost upwards of 40 vessels by enemy action, half the number within the past year; she has attempted to comply with Germany's illegal blockade regulations, I and has found her maritime connecI tions closed ; while her position as I the leading influence among SpanishI speaking countries has been gravely compromised by her isolation from the great confederacy of civilisation, I to which her, daughter-States across

the Atlantic have already allied themselves. But Germany has cast so many indignities upon her national honour that more than once it has seemed that patience would give way to active resentment. The peremptory tone of the latest Note from Madrid suggests now that vague promises by Berlin, without definite security against the repetition of such incidents, will no longer placate public indignation. It is less than a year since relations between Spain and Germany were strained almost to the breaking point by the destruction, in circumstances most humiliating to the Spanish flag, of the steamer San Fulgencio. while carrying a cargo of coal to Barcelona. Count Romanonos then proposed to tell the Cortes that strict neutrality no longer sufficed to guarantee the lives and property of 'Spaniards. Some of his colleagues were unwilling to risk the logical consequences of such a declaration, and their withdrawal led to the fall of the Cabinet. But his attitude has been maintained by successive Cabinets, and Senor Garcia Pricto, who returned to office last November after a period of confusion due to domestic problems, has made it clear that his policy is not neutrality whatever may happen. Thus, at the beginning of the second year of destruction of neutral shipping, Germany is called upon to face a newcrisis in her relations with the only considerable Power in Western Europe which still remains outside the war, and, according to to-day's cables, the prospect of an immediate declaration of war by Argentina. The experience of the great South American republic has revealed the duplicity of all German undertakings to neutrals, which are cheerfully renewed after every outrage with merely sufficient veneer of sincerity to postpone reprisals. Resolutions in favour of a declaration of war were passed by both Houses of the Argentine Legislature some months ago, and it was then expected that effect would be given to them as soon as the harvest had been gathered. The breach of relations declared after the Luxburg revelations is now apparently, to be followed by complete belligerency.