How Uncle Sam Proposes to Enter
Into the Shipping Business.

THIS is the situation as S. 6856 comes on the scene,

-that is to say the bill that provides for the federal government's entering into the shipping business. A shipping board is to be constituted, to consist of the secretary of the treasury, the postmaster-general and the secretary of commerce. Through this board, the United States is to subscribe for 51 per cent. of the capital stock of "any corporation now or hereafter organized under the laws of the United States" for the object of engaging in foreign commerce. The initial capital stock of this corporation shall not be more than $10,000,000, but the shipping board may increase this "from time to time as the interests of the corporation may require," but the United States must always keep 51 per cent. of the stock. This shipping board is to have at its disposition bonds of the government to the extent of $30,000,000, with which to purchase or construct vessels "with a view to transferring them to such corporation," to be paid for by the corporation with its own gold bonds, bearing interest at not less than four per cent. Such vessels shall be limited to trade with foreign countries and with the Philippines, Hawaii, Guam and Tutuila, but in all other respects shall have the same privileges and the same standing in law as private-owned merchant vessels. As far as practicable, they shall be of a type suitable for use as naval auxiliaries, and the President is also authorized to transfer by charter or lease, to this corporation, any of the ships of the navy or of the Panama Railroad Company not required for naval purposes in time of peace. Inspectors are to be appointed at various ports who shall inspect the cargoes offered for shipment not only on these ships but on all merchant ships registered under our laws, and they shall attach an official certificate to the ship's invoice, and no ship shall be allowed to clear without such certificate. This is the bill that is likely to take the center of the political stage until disposed of. "It will be observed," says Secretary McAdoo, "that the government does not engage in the shipping business; it is merely a stockholder, or the only stockholder, in a private corporation engaged in such business."

THE

Opponents of the Shipping Bill Ready to Go to the Limit. HE size of this new issue thus injected into American politics is easily discerned, when one recalls the stir that was made by Mr. Bryan's declaration a few years ago in favor of the government ownership of railroads. To those who oppose that sort of thing this bill seems to be even more objectionable than Mr. Bryan's proposition, because of the international complications they foresee. "Talk about leaps into the dark," says the N. Y. Evening Post, one of the most ardent supporters of the President on most matters; "this bill is a leap into the abyss of Ocean and Old Night." The Chamber of Commerce of New York has by unanimous vote endorsed a report opposing the bill. The Boston Maritime Association and the Philadelphia Maritime Association have taken the same position. Senators Lodge, Burton and Root have indicated their intention to carry opposition in the Senate to the limit. "It means," said Mr. Root, "a departure on the line of governmental action more important and more fateful in its results than any act passed by this Congress since I became a member.” Senator Vardaman, of Mississippi, a Democratic member of the commerce commit

tee, terms the bill "the most indefensible form of subsidy yet proposed." The Chicago Tribune sees in the measure possibilities of politics and spoils "appalling to contemplate." The President, it says, "blandly offers a remedy that would be worse than the disease complained of, and his smooth rhetoric renders him oblivious to every one of the grave issues involved in his revolutionary proposal." The San Francisco Chronicle, in common with many opponents of the bill, views with apprehension the "grave consequences which would probably result" from having Government-owned ships stopped and searched by the war-ships of belligerents. "No time more fraught with danger," the Philadelphia Ledger thinks, "could be selected than the present in which to launch so radical and unprecedented a plan." The New York city press, with the exception of the World and the Hearst papers, are not only opposed to the scheme but vehemently opposed. "Ordinary radicalism," says the Brooklyn Eagle, "will look like conservatism when this bill goes to the White House for signature. And, when it shall have been vitalized by the Presidential pen, the Socialists should celebrate. Their turn will have come." Such a measure, insist the Sun, the Times, the Press and many other papers, would be the death-knell of all private effort along the same line.

Ο

Is the Nation Missing a Great Opportunity?

N THE other hand there are some ordinarily conservative papers that either look with favor upon the plan or are willing at least to suspend judgment. The Springfield Republican is one of these. If sudden paralysis on our railroads, it observes, were to take place suddenly and the government could, by purchasing and operating 100,000 motor cars, relieve the situation, would Congress hesitate to meet the emergency in that way? The opposition, it declares, is without any practical substitute to offer except the old-time futile subsidy proposition, and "it is not free from the suspicion of being largely controlled by the private shipping interests now in the field, which are profiting enormously from the high freight rates being levied on ocean trade." Old-time Republicans, says the N. Y. World, will fight the measure to the limit because they never despair of getting their subsidy shovels into the treasury. We need the ships, it goes on to say, for the promotion of commerce to-day, and we may need them to-morrow as naval auxiliaries. Both purposes are legitimate and to fight the bill because it does not smother a favored interest with public money "is as stupidly selfish as it is shockingly unpatriotic." The Baltimore Sun takes sides in favor, but does so with an "if" or two. If our commerce is suffering as Secretaries McAdoo and Redfield assert, and if we are missing a great opportunity by inaction, then "we cannot afford to be deterred by ordinary precedents from promoting and protecting our own interests." The Houston Post favors the bill as "a relief measure,' and the Charleston News and Courier thinks the country is "predisposed to support the President in this business as in most others," but it admits that "the confidence of those who do so is subjected to a very severe strain."

Mexicans have quit firing over the border. At last they seem to realize that it requires no extraordinary marksmanship to hit Texas. -Toledo Blade.

Myron T. Herrick's remark that his diplomatic experience in France cost him $400,000 may explain in some degree the painful reluctance of the Parisians to let him go.-N. Y. World.

TRANGE as it may seem, there are still 220,000,

STRA

ooo civilized people in the world, not counting China or the Balkan nations, who are not yet involved in war. They form the neutral nations. One-half of this population, nearly, are under the American flag. Most of the others are in Italy, Spain, Holland, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries, South and Central America. These nations are beginning to lift up their voices in protest against the violation of what they consider the rights of neutrals. Sweden, Norway and Denmark have formed an alliance and have registered a united and emphatic objection to the mining and virtual. closing of the North Sea. Holland has made strenuous protest against the way in which her ships have been treated by the belligerents. A strong feeling of irritation is reported in Italy, and her newspapers are discussing the advisability of forming a league of all the neutral nations in Europe. From Venezuela comes an official suggestion looking to the formation of a league of all the neutral nations on this hemisphere, to be extended later to those in other parts of the world. "The necessities of war," says the Premier of Sweden, “have been invoked on both belligerent sides to justify a series of measures contrary to the laws of nations, and the rights of neutral countries. It is desirable that such pernicious doctrine be universally stigmatized and abandoned." "In the present war," says Professor Kirchwey, dean of the law school of Columbia University, "the belligerent powers are not content with devastating one another's fields and killing one another's soldiers; they have found it necessary to assume that it is their right to occupy neutral territory to carry on their quarrel and to interfere with the commerce of the world. When I contemplate the situation in Europe, with its contemptuous and intolerable disregard for the rights of other nations, I feel ashamed of the poor, craven humanity here and in other nations which tolerates that abuse."

We Notify England of Our "Growing Concern" Over Her Course.

EVEN while Professor Kirchwey was uttering these words, our department of state was engaged in drafting a formal protest to the British government— the most important document, according to some of the foreign papers, that has been published since the war began. One of the first effects of this document was the quotation at Lloyd's of an insurance premium of 15 guineas per cent.-$75 on $500-against war between. the United States and Great Britain. When the full text of the protest was published and it was found to be less harsh in tone than the cabled summary, the premium promptly dropped to seven guineas. Even at that it was as high as for insurance against war in the Scandinavian countries. The situation was viewed by the Los Angeles Times as "very grave," but the American opinion was more nearly expressed in the statement of the Philadelphia Ledger that "the issue is vital, not critical." The note of protest, which the London Times admits is "entirely unexceptionable in tone," begins by expressing "the most friendly spirit," then voices a "growing concern" over the treatment of our commerce on the high seas and of neutral commerce in general,

which, it avers, has been denied "the freedom to which it was entitled by the law of nations." This government is reluctantly forced, the protest then runs, "to the conclusion that the present policy of his Majesty's government toward neutral ships and cargoes exceeds the manifest necessity of a belligerent and constitutes restrictions upon the rights of American citizens on the high seas which are not justified by the rules of international law or required under the principle of selfpreservation." The detentions of some of our ships carrying absolute contraband to neutral countries are termed "unwarranted." Copper shipments to Italy are specified. "Equally unjustified by the established rules of international conduct" have been the seizure of cargoes of food-stuffs. The situation is described as "a critical one to the commercial interests of the United States" that "may arouse a feeling contrary to that which has so long existed between the American and British people."

What British Naval Officers Are
Doing to American Cargoes.

THIS is pretty plain speaking for a diplomatic docu

ment. But the real crux of the protest appears in the statement that while the United States admits the full right of a belligerent to visit and search neutral vessels on the high seas, and to detain them "when there is sufficient evidence to justify a belief that contraband articles are in their cargoes," this government "cannot without protest permit American ships or American cargoes to be taken into British ports and there detained for the purpose of searching generally for evidence of contraband or upon presumption created by special municipal enactments which are clearly at variance with international law and practice." This is the vital point in the protest. This is the point which is left in doubt in Sir Edward's "preliminary reply." If any real trouble comes of the situation, it will come in at this point. American ships have been seized on the high seas, on suspicion that they contained contraband goods for the enemies of Great Britain, taken to British ports for search and detained for weeks. The Kroonland, with copper for Italy, was held for a number of weeks at Gibraltar; the Pridilla, with a mixed cargo for a neutral port, was held at Halifax; the Rockefeller, with oil for a Scandinavian port, was held at Kirkwall; the Joseph Fordney, the Edward Pierce, the George Hawley, with mixed cargoes for neutral ports in north Europe, were held at Falmouth. Forty-five cargoes in all, proceeding from this country to the neutral ports of Europe, have been seized and turned over to British prize courts. A much larger number have been taken to British ports and released after delays sometimes as long as five weeks, and in one or two cases even longer. The question raised is not whether these cargoes should have been subjected to search, but whether they should, on mere suspicion, have been taken to a British port, there to be searched at leisure. This we cannot permit "without protest." This, says Sir Edward, is "essential" if there is to be any search at all. Here are his words: "It is, however, essential under modern conditions that, where there is real ground for suspecting the presence of contraband, the vessel should be brought into port

or examination. In no other way can the right of search be exercized, and but for this practice it would have to be completely abandoned." This seems to bring us for the time being to a deadlock.

ON

Why Great Britain Has Been Seizing Our Ships.

N ALL other points the British foreign secretary meets us not only half-way but all the way. He disclaims any desire "to contest the general principles of law" on which he understands our protest to be based, or at least he disclaims such a desire "pending a more detailed reply." All his Majesty's government desires to interfere with is contraband for the enemy. He explains the interference which has been made with cargoes for neutral countries by the fact that the sudden large increase, since the war, in the shipment of certain articles to those countries raises a presumption. that they were really destined for warring countries. In the first five months of the war, he says, our shipments of copper to Italy increased from 15,000,000 pounds in 1913 to 36,000,000 in 1914. Our shipments of copper to other neutral countries in Europe increased in the same period from seven millions to thirty-five millions of pounds. "Positive evidence," says Sir Edward, was in his possession that four cargoes of copper consigned to Sweden were "definitely destined" for Germany. Suspiciously large shipments of rubber also are noted by Sir Edward, tho he does not give the figures. The increase in such shipments to Italy is explained by the Italian ambassador at Washington by the fact that his country had, previously to the war, imported much of her copper from Germany, and since the war began has been unable to get any from the belligerents. The Scandinavian countries make the same explanations. In any event, so our government maintains, it is Great Britain's business, not ours, to make the necessary arrangements with neutral countries in Europe to prevent the delivery of contraband articles to Germany. The London Times concedes that this is "a problem which American traders are justified in looking upon as outside their province and emphatically within ours.' One other point, however, Sir Edward has, in the opinion of some American papers, well taken. Since the outbreak of the war we have changed our former practice and are now prohibiting the publication of ships' manifests until thirty days after sailing. "We had," says Sir Edward Grey, "no locus standi' for complaining of this change, and did not complain. But the effect

of it must be to increase the difficulty of ascertaining the presence of contraband and to render necessary in the interests of our national safety the examination and detention of more ships than would have been the case if the former practice had continued."

Backing Up the President's Protest.

'HERE is but one view taken of our government's position, so far as the press of this country is concerned, and that is that Great Britain is exceeding her rights in the treatment of our shipping. There is some criticism of our note of protest, but no opposition on the main point. Thus the Philadelphia Ledger charges that the real injury to American commerce was inflicted in the first place by the order of Secretary McAdoo that manifests should not be published for thirty days. This, says the Ledger, "made interference inevitable" and

A STUDY IN NEUTRALITY!
"Here the heart

May give a useful lesson to the head,

And Wisdom wiser grow without his books."-Cowper.

-John Bull

placed our government in the position of conniving in the sale of contraband. "The shipping interests objected to his order at the time. It was one that never should have been issued. Now that its inevitable consequences are revealed, it is idle for the President to befog the issue by an attack on the British government." The Baltimore American regards the protest as a reflection upon American diplomacy because it simply objected and did not suggest some method for securing relief. The result will be that Great Britain will do the suggesting and we will follow the changes of policy indicated, instead of originating such changes. The San Francisco Chronicle thinks that the note of protest was remarkable for its silence in respect to the seizing of citizens of an enemy's country when found on a neutral ship-an act, it says, that has been reported time and again and has been passed by in silence, tho in our civil war such an act on our part nearly brought us into armed conflict with Great Britain. But, aside from these critical comments, the press of all parties sustains. the protest. "He has the whole country back of him," says the New York American, a Hearst paper, speaking of the President, "and may well continue unfalteringly in the course he outlined in his note to the British government."

"Reckless Interference With Neutral Commerce."

SOMETI
SOMETHING more than our own commercial in-

terests are involved in this question, remarks the Springfield Republican. The appeal to us to tolerate the interference with our commerce because in this way only can the Allies bring about a speedy end to the war, is simply asking us to do what Germany asked Belgium to do, and what the world has applauded her for refusing to do. "If the English," says the Republican, "are to invade neutral rights on the high seas with that plea, they will deprive themselves of their moral justification for resisting Germany's invasion of neutral rights in the Low Countries, for the plea of national necessity cannot be confined to one side of the English channel. If America were officially to take sides at all, there would be but one honest course to follow. That would be active and direct participation in the conflict, beginning at once with a declaration of war. Anything short of that in hostility to Germany would be grossly dishonest and cowardly." It is none

75

of our business, the Philadelphia Ledger insists, what guarantees Great Britain may ask or receive from other neutral nations in regard to reexportation of contraband articles; but we are not content to pursue our legitimate commerce at the sufferance of any other nation.

"We demand freedom of our ships as a right. Nor will we swerve one inch from the definite line of policy laid down, buttressed as it is by a long line of precedents and accepted international law. Never has a nation attempted such bold and reckless interference with neutral commerce as has England in the last five months."

N°

International Laws Are Not Mere "Scraps of Paper." O PLEA of necessity, remarks the N. Y. Evening Post, which is as far from jingoism as any paper in the country, can avail to set aside the indefensible rights of neutrals at sea. "The rules carefully worked out through all the years, with the decisions made by British courts as well as American, and the positions laid down repeatedly by British statesmen as well as our own, cannot be brushed aside as if they were but scraps of paper." The same journal refers to observations of the London Chronicle to the effect that the size of modern ships and the danger of attack by submarines make it impracticable to search a ship at sea without taking it first into port. That may be, rejoins the Post, but "convenience for the captor does not make international law." "Is England," asks the Seattle PostIntelligencer, "superior to international law? It would seem so." "But one solution of the matter," says the San Francisco Chronicle, "will be satisfactory to the American people, and that is that the seas belong to the neutrals just as much as they belong to the belligerents." A note of warning is raised by the Charleston News and Courier as it reads the protest: "Let us realize once and for all that we cannot count ourselves safe from war simply because we contemplate aggression against nobody and are determined to deal fairly with everybody."

"OBSTRUCTING THE TRAFFIC, YOUR HONOR" -Kirby in N. Y. World

The Chicago Evening Post does not believe that the President, in making his protest, was influenced by any partisan purpose nor that he acted merely from selfish. regard to the commercial profit of the United States. "We feel," says this Progressive party paper, "that his protest is based simply upon his regard for American tradition and upon his sincere wish to protect the gains made in international law in the last century."

SUCH

Have We Killed the Hague Conventions Forever?

UCH is the note that prevails generally in the American press. One point raised in the British. papers, however, strikes a responsive chord in some of the editorial sanctums here. The note of protest, says the London Chronicle-and the London Globe and other papers there follow this lead-"would impress the world rather differently if it had been preceded by notes in other quarters regarding the violation of Belgium, the ghastly massacres of noncombatants, the illegal and merciless money fines, the bombardment of defenseless watering-places or the scattering of long-lived mines in the open seas." The consequence of what it calls. our "abandonment of the Hague conventions," in not protesting over any of these events, has been that they are killed beyond visible means of resurrection. "No State is going to let itself in for such a deception again, nor is it possible to deny that the moral position of the United States has been appreciably weakened." This may sound severe, but it is very mild compared with Mr. Roosevelt's words on the same topic. Germany's raid on Belgium, it seems, was not as bad as our failure to protest. He writes in the N. Y. Independent:

"To violate these conventions, to violate neutrality treaties, as Germany has done in the case of Belgium, is a dreadful thing. It represents the gravest kind of international wrongdoing; but it is really not quite so contemptible, it does not show such shortsighted and timid inefficiency, and, above all, such selfish indifference to the cause of permanent and righteous peace, as has been shown by the United States (thanks to President Wilson and Secretary Bryan) in refusing to fulfill its solemn obligations by taking whatever action was necessary in order to clear our skirts from the guilt of tame acquiescence in a wrong which we had solemnly undertaken to oppose."