FULL CIRCLE. T HE wheel has come full circle. The submarine
con- troversy is back where it was when President. Wilson first began to protest against German practices. Last week, in discussing the alleged Lusitania ' settlement, we Wrote : " It hardly needs saying that Germany's next diplomatic enterprise will be to try to persuade the United States to demand that British merchantmen shall no longer be armed." Before the words were published the German stroke fell. Germany presented a Memorandum to the representatives of neutral Powers in Berlin com- plaining that British merchantmen had been armed to attack German submarines, and, in fact, frequently had attacked them. It is clear, argues the Memorandum, that such vessels have become ships of war, and must be treated as such. Germany therefore declares that in future all armed merchantmen will be regarded as belligerent vessels, and German submarines will sink them without warning. The Memorandum concludes by warning neutrals not to travel in armed merchantmen belonging to the Allies. The argument of the German Government really amounts to this : " We assassinated the non-combatant crews and passengers of merchantmen on the high seas. The merchantmen armed themselves against assassination. Now that they are armed they have become ships of war, and we therefore have the right to assassinate everybody on board."
With great satisfaction we learn from the papers of Thursday that Mr. Wilson means to resist the German request that the United States Government shall refuse to receive armed merchantmen in their harbours. It is, moreover, very unlikely that he will advise American citizens not to travel in armed merchantmen. Mr. Wilson could have come to no other decision if he remained faithful to the case he has always presented to Germany. From the beginning he declared, as the plainest and simplest facts of history required him to do, that he could not recognize German submarine warfare as legal because it involved risk of death to neutrals. Neutrals, he asserted, had a perfect right to travel in any merchant vessels they pleased, whether those vessels belonged to belligerent nations or not. If, therefore, German submarine Warfare continued, and Americans thereby lost their lives, he would call Germany strictly to account, and regard her deeds as hostile to the United States.
This point cannot be emphasized too much. In spite of Mr. Wilson's warning, several neutral vessels were sunk, including American vessels. Then came the sinking of the Lusitania.' Mr. Wilson declared that it was manifest that submarines could not be used against merchantmen " without an inevitable violation of many sacred principles of justice and humanity." German submarine warfare was impossible " without disregarding those rules of fairness, reason, justice, and humanity which all modern opinion regards as imperative." In the subsequent discussion, Mr. Wilson insisted that " the sinking of pas- senger ships involves principles of humanity " which throw details into the background—principles " which lift it out of the class of ordinary subjects of diplomatic discussion or international controversy." America, he maintained, was " contending for something much greater than the mere rights of property and the privileges of commerce." It was " for nothing less high and sacred than the rights of humanity," and it was " upon this principle of humanity, as well as upon the law founded on this principle, that the United States must stand." There is no doubt about the meaning of those words. They all led up to the logical culmination of the demand that Germany should no longer: refrain from disavowing " her - wanton acts. " Principles," said Mr. Wilson, " are immutable," and the United States would insist on them " without compromise and at any cost." Well, the immutable principles are once more called in question. Surely we are justified in saying that Mr. Wilson could not possibly have come to any other decision than to say that merchantmen have a right to defend themselves. The fault is not with the merchantmen, but with the country which has criminally violated the law of nations that merchantmen can only be searched, detained, and Condemned as prizes.
The persistence with which Germany restates her im- possible case in va,.iuus new disguises seems every now and then to confusz, some Americans who are in general sympathy with the Allies. It is being said now, for instance : " But if, as the carman Memorandum says, a certain number of British merchantmen are armed for the express purpose of hunting down and destroying German sub- marines, is it not clear that German submarines will be at a hopeless disctdvantage if England maintains the right to arm all merchantmen ? The German submarines cannot possibly distinguish the merchantman armed offensively from the merchantman armed defensively. If Germany is not allowed to attack the right kind for fear of sinking the wrong kind, she will practically be deprived of the use of her submarine arm altogether." Such an argument is entirely irrelevant to the new situation. Indeed, there is no new situation. Mr. Wilson faces the same situation now which he faced when he delivered his first warning to Germany. The argument which we have just attributed to some Americans was considered by Mr. Wilson long ago and was flatly rejected by him. He saw that the " necessity " of Germany, though it is no doubt a conclusive argument to German minds, could not justify inhumanity. Civilized men agree to fight their battles under certain restrictions, and the principle is that the stronger nation should win within those restrictions, which are one and all dictated by humanity and a sense of decency. All that Germany says now is : " But at this rate I shall not win ! Within the restrictions my submarines arc of little use to me. Therefore I must make myself the stronger nation by ignoring the restrictions." We believe that any impartial man who thinks the question out must see that the German contention is simply for a derogation of the customs of humane men, and that if it should triumph the whole world would suffer from the terrible debasement of its standards. A hundred years spent in the patient elaboration of a civilized code would have been absolutely wasted and would count for naught.
German submarines have done little else but sink merchant vessels without warning. What is proposed now is merely to " commit the oldest kind of sins the newest kind of ways." We cannot help feeling that Mr. Wilson must be glad in a sense, in spite of all his bitter disappoint- ments, that the question has been brought back—as he plainly recognizes that it has been—to its original point. The issue is as clear as ever, and who can doubt that hi3 principles remain the same ? The waves of diplomacy have buffeted him and thrown him into very deep water, but the last wave has washed him back to where he first stood, and he can once more feel his feet on firm ground. Americans still claim their full rights under international law, and Mr. Wilson must know that the Allies stand for those rights, whereas Germany would wipe them out. All that Count Bemstorff can urge in mitigation of this estimate of the situation is that Americans do not travel as a rule in armed freighters—the Transatlantic liners are not armed —and that therefore they are unlikely to meet their death by the new (or rather continued) policy of German submarine warfare.
As for the right of merchantmen to defend themselves, it is immemorial. Jefferson once said of an armed mer- chantman : " Though she has arms to defend herself in time of war, in the course of her reaular commerce, this no more makes her a privateer than aehusbandman, following his plough in time of war, with a knife or pistol in his pocket, is thereby made a soldier." In several other declarations the United States has formally asserted the right of self-defence. Mr. Wilson has himself confirmed it during the present war. Surely the bold assertion of a new international law on his own responsibility is more than Mr. Wilson will care to undertake. It is a very dangerous precedent to create precedents—when there is no need to do it. Moreover, we fancy that the interruption of commerce to which Mr. Wilson would agree in principle, by creating a new law, would be much more harmful than helpful to the United States. After all, it is possible to say whether a vessel is armed defensively or offensively. You can test her by the calibre and number of her guns, and by the amount of ammunition she carries. A vessel does not go out deliberately to hunt for submarines with twenty or thirty rounds of ammunition.
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