The Washington times., 1915-06-25
THE BRITISH NOTE

The British answer to our Govern
ment's complaints of undue interfer-
ence with our shipments to neutral
countries, of unnecessary delay in
prize court and other judicial settle
ments Of disputed cases, and of lack
of consideration for our shippers
who have not abided by the rules OF
blockade proclaimed last March,
must give Americans a painfully un-
comfortable feeling of having pre-
sented, either through failure to in
form ourselves of the true facts or
through deliberate attempts at
trickery, a very bad case.
In minute details of specific proof
the answer sets up in restrained but
polite language that virtually none
of our neutral commerce has been
hampered, that the principal delays
in judicial proceedings have been
caused by our own plaintiffs and
their lawyers, and that again and
again the British government has
extended to them special favors, not
because they were entitled to them
but because it wished to show its
friendliness toward the American
people.
And, worst of all for our sense Of
fair dealing and of honest profess
sion, the answer shows that what we
call neutral commerce is not, and
cannot be believed by US to be, in
the great majority of cases, neutral
commerce at all.
In other words, the British gov
ernment as good as accuses US Of
not making a frank and genuine is
sue; and Americans who are honest
with themselves will be bound to ad-
nit that the reproach is true.
The facts are, and our own off,
cial statistics show it, that never in
all the history Of this country did we
ever before export and deliver to
neutral peoples anything like the
volume of commerce we have been
sending to them ever since the war
began, and are still sending. Amer
lean exporters have pretended that
shipments were non-contraband
when they were contraband, and
have pretended that they were des-
tined for neutrals when they could
not be destined for anybody but
belligerents. We have set up in the
past, and are still setting up, un-
warranted claims to immunity from
blockade restrictions and false de-
mands for compensation for our in
fringements of those restrictions.
The trouble is, all fair-minded
Americans must confess, that the
Washington Administration has
tried to carry water on both shoul-
ders. Because it has had to write
notes of protest to the Berlin for
eign office, it must, to show it's i'm
partiality, write notes of protest 70
Downing street. Because we have
had genuine grievances-frightful
grievances-against Won Tirpitz
submarines, we must manufacture
spurious grievances against the
British prize courts.
And because the United States, in
our own civil war, made the very
blockade rules which the allies are
now exercising, and because we are
thus restrained, by the very prece-
dent which we ourselves established
from disputing our own continuous
voyage and other restrictions-be
cause, in a word, we cannot contra
vene our own blockade law accepted
by the world as binding upon every,
body, we try to beat the devil
around the stump, declaring we are
not seeking to avoid those estab,
lished rules of blockade-establish
ed by ourselves half century ago
when we are doing that very thing.
Unless we are prepared to repudi.
ate our own civil war principles, al
we set aside tariff schedule or su.
persede Federal Office holders, let ut
have done with putting false labels
on our international goods in tn.