New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-05-10
Sentiment and Foresight.

III Nl4O iiOI lOA anu N4'4i4t*f N-NNANNN - VIZ
sinking Of the Lusitania it must not be
forgotten that there never was any good
ground for the hope that the Germans
would spare passenger vessels upon hu-
name considerations. Seeing that some
months before the blockade was declared
the Amiral Ganteaume, with two thousand
non-combatants on board, was ruthlessly
torpedoed without the slightest warning
it was hardly to be expected that after
the formal proclamation of the imperial
government scruples Of conscience would
be allowed to interfere with the work of
the submarine commanders.
If there was actually but little appre
hension among the Lustania's passengers,
their equanimity may be attributed in part
to the belief that for prudential reasons
care would be taken to avoid the murder
of neutrals, but in the main it was prob
ably due to the comparative failure Of the
blockade. More than a million troops
have been conveyed TO various places IN
British ships in the last eight months
some hundreds Of thousands have crossed
the English Channel since the war began,
vet in all that time not a single transport
has been sunk. AS it has been known for
a long time that German submarines
had succeeded in evading the British mine
fields and were at large in the Channel, so
IL was certain that if it had been possible
they would have attacked the many
troopships constantly crossing between
England and France; their failure to do
any damage in this way was so reassuring
that the danger to fast liners came to be
regarded as too remote for serious con-
sideration. And there is still good rea-
son to regard such danger as remote.
Of late, indeed, many naval men in
England were beginning to speculate
anew on the purpose Of the blockade, be-
ginning to wonder whether it had really
been undertaken as an end in itself or de-
vised as a sort Of feint to cover some
other and more ambitious enterprise.
Thus it was suggested quite recently by
an acute student of naval strategy that
Just as the seemingly futile bombardment
Of Scarborough was probably but part of
more important project that proved
abortive in the event, so it might well be
that the pretended blockade was in reality
only a preparatory move in concerted
submarine attack on the British fleet.
The instant effect Of the recent disaster
on the stock exchanges shows that it is
unnecessary to invent such hypothesis TO
account for the German policy. Their aim
is to terrify, and that this would be their
aim was long ago foreseen by Admiral Sir
Percy Scott. BY an extraordinary stroke
of fortune they have at last succeeded in
catching a great liner, and at the same
time shown that those who argued against
the likelihood Of such an attempt on mere
" moral grounds did not understand Ger
man intentions as clearly as Sir Percy
Scott did. Lord Sydenham had argued that,
setting aside all considerations of human
itv, this relapse into savagery would not
serve the purpose of the navy which so
far degraded itself" Sir Percy Scott
brushed such reasoning aside as academic,
and TO support his apprehensions pro
duced the following passage from letter
written by "a foreign naval officer" pre-
sumably German:
IL we went to war with an insular country
depending for its food supplies from oversee
il would be our business TO stop that supply
on the declaration OF war We should notify
the enemy that she should warn those Of her
ships coming home not TO approach
the island as we were establishing block
ado of mines and submarines. Similarly, we
should notify all neutrals that such block
AIDE had been established, and that If any
Of their vessels approached the island they
would be liable to destruction, either BY
mines or submarines, and therefore would
do so AT their own risk
This controversy took place before the
present war was thought of. Sir Percy
Scott was convinced that, trusting to the
proverbial timidity of trade, the Germans
would attack without scruple by all means