The Washington times., 1916-02-29
WHAT DOES BERLIN MEANp

In all these discussions over armed
merchantmen by the Berlin foreign
Office and its representative in this
country, Ambassador Bernstorff,
there is a singularly persistent Jug
Cling Of ideas and confounding Of
principles, undoubtedly premeditated
and possibly significant.
& Repeated assurances are given in
various forms that under Berlin.s
new doctrine a submarine will not
seek to sink merchantmen unless
those merchantmen attack the SUBJ
marine by firing at it or by ramming
it or unless they attempt to escape.
But this was long ago agreed. We
have never questioned the legal right
Of submarine to fire at q merchant
man seeking to escape capture, much
less at merchantmen putting up a
fight against the submarine. Nobody
would undertake to question the
legal right of the submarine to she'll
a merchantmen until it should stop
for visit and search or for surrender.
1t is not apparent why those prin-
ciples upheld by all nations should
thus be dragged into this new con-
troversy in the way they are, unless
the Berlin foreign Office, as it has
done so often before, is deliberately
setting up in this country a case
which it can gradually and quietly
compromise while making It appear
at home that there are at issue two
entirely separate cases, one of which
Berlin does not and never did ques-
tion and one of which it does not and
never will abandon.
This putting out Of final decisions
for home consumption has been so
habitual with the Berlin foreign Of
flee that there is every reason to
suspect the same sort of perform
ance now. And yet there is always
the hideous chance that if, after all,
Berlin does not intend to commit an
act which would force the United
States Government to break with
the German government something
might go wrong with the plan.
Berlin may intend to preserve the
existing relations with us by not tor
pedoing any merchantmen, armed or
unarmed, without giving innocent
+ neutrals a chance to quit the ship.
Berlin, although declaring that
armed merchantmen are ships Of
war, may intend to treat them as If
they were not armed, to give them
warning, to permit passengers and
crews to take to the boats; but Won
Tirpitz submarine commander may
take his instructions from the ad-
miralty rather than from the for
eign Office. That would be no new
thing in this submarine warfare.
Of course, no matter what Berlin
maintains submarines have the right
to do with an armed merchantmen,
the United States Government has
no cause for break until they do it.
If they never do it, no matter how
much they talk about doing it, the
United States Government will never
have to act.
The trouble is there is more than
an even chance that a submarine
may do it, just as heretofore a sub
marine here, submarine there, and
a submarine some place else has al
ways come along to do the very
thing this Government said should
not be done. And if in this case il
should be done and American lives
should be sacrificed President Will
son, after his warning to the Berlin
foreign Office and after his declara-
tion to Congress, delivered in the
shape of his official letter to Senator
Stone, would be face to face with an
unqualified rupture or an absolute