Part 4

"At the same time your Excellency notified me that, while granting the possibility of using new methods of retaliation against the new use to which submarines have been put, the Government of the United States was somewhat apprehensive that the allied belligerents might (if their action is to be construed as constituting a blockade) capture in waters near America any ships which might have escaped the cruisers patrolling European waters. In acknowledging receipt of your Excellency's communication I have the honor to inform you that the Government of the republic has not failed to consider this point as presented by the Government of the United States, and I beg to specify clearly the conditions of application, as far as my Government is concerned of the declaration of the allied Governments. As well set forth by the Federal Government, the old methods of blockade cannot be entirely adhered to in view of the use Germany has made of her submarines, and also by reason of the geographical situation of that country. In answer to the challenge to the neutrals as well as to its own adversaries contained in the declaration, by which the German Imperial Government stated that it considered the seas surrounding Great Britain and the French coast on the Channel as a military zone, and warned neutral vessels not to enter the same on account of the danger they would run, the allied Governments have been obliged to examine what measures they could adopt to interrupt all maritime communication with the German Empire and thus keep it blockaded by the naval power of the two allies, at the same time, however, safeguarding as much as possible the legitimate interests of neutral powers and respecting the laws of humanity which no crime of their enemy will induce them to violate.

"The Government of the republic, therefore, reserves to itself the right of bringing into a French or allied port any ship carrying a cargo presumed to be of German origin, destination, or ownership, but it will not go to the length of seizing any neutral ship except in case of contraband. The discharged cargo shall not be confiscated. In the event of a neutral proving his lawful ownership of merchandise destined to Germany, he shall be entirely free to dispose of same, subject to certain conditions. In case the owner of the goods is a German, they shall simply be sequestrated during the war.

"Merchandise of enemy origin shall only be sequestrated when it is at the same time the property of an enemy. Merchandise belonging to neutrals shall be held at the disposal of its owner to be returned to the port of departure.

"As your Excellency will observe, these measures, while depriving the enemy of important resources, respect the rights of neutrals and will not in any way jeopardize private property, as even the enemy owner will only suffer from the suspension of the enjoyment of his rights during the term of hostilities.

"The Government of the republic, being desirous of allowing neutrals every facility to enforce their claims, (here occurred an undecipherable group of words,) give the prize court, an independent tribunal, cognizance of these questions, and in order to give the neutrals as little trouble as possible it has specified that the prize court shall give sentence within eight days, counting from the date on which the case shall have been brought before it.

"I do not doubt, Mr. Ambassador, that the Federal Government, comparing on the one hand the unspeakable violence with which the German Military Government threatens neutrals, the criminal actions unknown in maritime annals already perpetrated against neutral property and ships, and even against the lives of neutral subjects or citizens, and on the other hand the measures adopted by the allied Governments of France and Great Britain, respecting the laws of humanity and the rights of individuals, will readily perceive that the latter have not overstepped their strict rights as belligerents.

"Finally, I am anxious to assure you that it is not and it has never been the intention of the Government of the republic to extend the action of its cruisers against enemy merchandise beyond the European seas, the Mediterranean included."

SHARP.

British Order in Council

Declaring a Blockade of German Ports

_LONDON, March 15.--The British Order in Council decreeing retaliatory measures on the part of the Government to meet the declaration of the Germans that the waters surrounding the United Kingdom are a military area, was made public today. The text of the order follows:_

Whereas, the German Government has issued certain orders which, in violation of the usages of war, purport to declare that the waters surrounding the United Kingdom are a military area in which all British and allied merchant vessels will be destroyed irrespective of the safety and the lives of the passengers and the crews, and in which neutral shipping will be exposed to similar danger in view of the uncertainties of naval warfare, and

Whereas, in the memorandum accompanying the said orders, neutrals are warned against intrusting crews, passengers, or goods to British or allied ships, and

Whereas, such attempts on the part of the enemy give to his Majesty an unquestionable right of retaliation; and

Whereas, his Majesty has therefore decided to adopt further measures in order to prevent commodities of any kind from reaching or leaving Germany, although such measures will be enforced without risk to neutral ships or to neutral or non-combatant life and in strict observance of the dictates of humanity; and

Whereas, the allies of his Majesty are associated with him in the steps now to be announced for restricting further the commerce of Germany, his Majesty is therefore pleased by and with the advice of his Privy Council to order, and it is hereby ordered, as follows:

First--No merchant vessel which sailed from her port of departure after March 1, 1915, shall be allowed to proceed on her voyage to any German port. Unless this vessel receives a pass enabling her to proceed to some neutral or allied port to be named in the pass, the goods on board any such vessel must be discharged in a British port and placed in custody of the Marshal of the prize court. Goods so discharged, if not contraband of war, shall, if not requisitioned for the use of his Majesty, be restored by order of the court and upon such terms as the court may in the circumstances deem to be just to the person entitled thereto.

Second--No merchant vessel which sailed from any German port after March 1, 1915, shall be allowed to proceed on her voyage with any goods on board laden at such port. All goods laden at such port must be discharged in a British or allied port. Goods so discharged in a British port shall be placed in the custody of the Marshal of the prize court, and if not requisitioned for the use of his Majesty shall be detained or sold under the direction of the prize court.

The proceeds of the goods so sold shall be paid into the court and dealt with in such a manner as the court may in the circumstances deem to be just, provided that no proceeds of the sale of such goods shall be paid out of the court until the conclusion of peace, except on the application of a proper officer of the Crown, unless it be shown that the goods had become neutral property before the issue of this order, and provided also that nothing herein shall prevent the release of neutral property, laden at such enemy port, on the application of the proper officer of the Crown.

Third--Every merchant vessel which sailed from her port of departure after March 1, 1915, on her way to a port other than a German port and carrying goods with an enemy destination, or which are enemy property, may be required to discharge such goods in a British or allied port. Any goods so discharged in a British port shall be placed in the custody of the Marshal of the prize court, and unless they are contraband of war shall, if not requisitioned for the use of his Majesty, be restored by an order of the court upon such terms as the court may in the circumstances deem to be just to the person entitled thereto, and provided that this article shall not apply in any case falling within Article 2 or 4 of this order.

Fourth--Every merchant vessel which sailed from a port other than a German port after March 1, 1915, and having on board goods which are of enemy origin, or are enemy property, may be required to discharge such goods in a British or allied port. Goods so discharged in a British port shall be placed in the custody of the Marshal of the prize court, and, if not requisitioned for the use of his Majesty, shall be detained or sold under the direction of the prize court. The proceeds of the goods so sold shall be paid into the court and be dealt with in such a manner as the court may in the circumstances deem to be just, provided that no proceeds of the sale of such goods shall be paid out of the court until the conclusion of peace except on the application of a proper officer of the Crown, unless it be shown that the goods had become neutral property before the issue of this order, and provided also that nothing herein shall prevent the release of neutral property of enemy origin on application of the proper officer of the Crown.

Fifth--Any person claiming to be interested in or to have any claim in respect of any goods not being contraband of war placed in the custody of the Marshal of the prize court under this order, or in the proceeds of such goods, may forthwith issue a writ in the prize court against the proper officer of the Crown and apply for an order that the goods should be restored to him, or that their proceeds should be paid to him, or for such other order as the circumstances of the case may require.

The practice and procedure of the prize court shall, so far as applicable, be followed mutatis mutandis in any proceedings consequential upon this order.

Sixth--A merchant vessel which has cleared for a neutral port from a British or allied port, or which has been allowed to pass as having an ostensible destination to a neutral port and proceeds to an enemy port, shall, if captured on any subsequent voyage be liable to condemnation.

Seventh--Nothing in this order shall be deemed to affect the liability of any vessel or goods to capture or condemnation independently of this order.

Eighth--Nothing in this order shall prevent the relaxation of the provisions of this order in respect of the merchant vessels of any country which declares that no commerce intended for or originating in Germany, or belonging to German subjects, shall enjoy the protection of its flag.

Germany's Submarine War

LONDON, March 13.--The Admiralty announced tonight that the British collier Invergyle was torpedoed today off Cresswell, England, and sunk. All aboard were saved.

This brings the total British losses of merchantmen and fishing vessels, either sunk or captured during the war, up to 137. Of these ninety were merchant ships and forty-seven were fishing craft.

A further submarine casualty today was the torpedoing of the Swedish steamer Halma off Scarborough, and the loss of the lives of six of her crew.

The Admiralty announces that since March 10 seven British merchant steamers have been torpedoed by submarines. Two of them, it is stated, were sunk, and of two others it is said that "the sinking is not confirmed." Three were not sunk.

The two steamers officially reported sunk were the Invergyle and the Indian City, which was torpedoed off the Scilly Islands on March 12. The crew of the Indian City was reported rescued.

The two steamers whose reported sinking is not yet officially confirmed are the Florazan, which was torpedoed at the mouth of the Bristol Channel on March 11, all of her crew being landed at Milford Haven, with the exception of one fireman, and the Andalusian, which was attacked off the Scilly Islands on March 12. The crew of the Andalusian is reported to have been rescued.

The Adenwen was torpedoed in the English Channel on March 11, and has since been towed into Cherbourg. Her crew was landed at Brisham.

The steamer Headlands was torpedoed on March 12 off the Scilly Islands. It is reported that her crew was saved. The steamer Hartdale was torpedoed on March 13 off South Rock, in the Irish Channel. Twenty-one of her crew were picked up and two were lost.

Supplementary to the foregoing the Admiralty tonight issued a report giving the total number of British merchant and fishing vessels lost through hostile action from the outbreak of the war to March 10. The statement says that during that period eighty-eight merchant vessels were sunk or captured. Of these fifty-four were victims of hostile cruisers, twelve were destroyed by mines, and twenty-two by submarines. Their gross tonnage totaled 309,945.

In the same period the total arrivals and sailings of overseas steamers of all nationalities of more than 300 tons net were 4,745.

Forty-seven fishing vessels were sunk or captured during this time. Nineteen of these were blown up by mines and twenty-eight were captured by hostile craft. Twenty-four of those captured were caught on Aug. 26, when the Germans raided a fishing fleet.

German People Not Blinded

By Karl Lamprecht

[Published in New York by the German Information Service, Feb. 3, 1915.]

Denying flatly that the German people were swept blindly and ignorantly into the war by the headlong ambitions of their rulers--the view advanced by Dr. Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University, and Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia--Dr. Karl Lamprecht, Professor of History in the University of Leipsic and world-famous German historian, has addressed the open letter which appears below to the two distinguished American scholars. Dr. Lamprecht asserts that under the laws which govern the German Empire the people as citizens have a deciding will in affairs of state and that Germany is engaged in the present conflict because the sober judgment of the German people led them to resort to arms.

_Dr. C.W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University; Dr. N.M. Butler, President of Columbia University._

Gentlemen: I feel confident that you are not in ignorance of my regard and esteem for the great American Republic and its citizens. They have been freely expressed on many occasions and have taken definite form in the journal of my travels through the United States, published in the booklet "Americana," 1905.

My sentiments and my judgment have not changed since 1905. I now refer, gentlemen, to the articles and speeches which you have published about my country and which have aroused widespread interest. I will not criticise your utterances one by one. If I did that I might have to speak on occasion with a frankness that would be ungracious, considering the fine appreciation which both of you still feel for old Germany. It would be specially ungracious toward you, President Eliot, for in quite recent times you honored me by your ready help in my scientific labors. All I want to do is to remove a few fundamental errors--in fact, only one. I feel in duty bound to do so, since many well-disposed Americans share that error.

The gravest and perhaps most widely spread misconception about us Germans is that we are the serfs of our Princes. (Fuerstenknechte,) servile and dependent in political thought. That false notion has probably been dispelled during the initial weeks of the present war.

With absolute certainty the German Nation, with one voice and correctly, diagnosed the political situation without respect to party or creed and unanimously and of its own free will acted.

But this misconception is so deep rooted that more extended discussion is needed. I pass on to other matters.

The essential point is that public opinion have free scope of development. Every American will admit that. Now, public opinion finds its expression in the principles that govern the use of the suffrage. The German voting system is the freest in the world, much freer than the French, English, or American system, because not only does it operate in accordance with the principle that every one shall have a direct and secret vote, but the powers of the State are exercised faithfully and conscientiously to carry out that principle in practice. The constitutional life of the German Nation is of a thoroughly democratic character.

Those who know that were not surprised that our Social Democrats marched to war with such enthusiasm. Already among their ranks many have fallen as heroes, never to be forgotten by any German when his thoughts turn to the noble blood which has saturated foreign soil--thank God, foreign soil! Many of the Socialist leaders and adherents are wearing the Iron Cross, that simple token that seems to tell you when you speak of its bearer, "Now, this is a fearless and faithful soul."

Let it be said once and for all: He who wants to understand us must accept our conception that constitutionally we enjoy so great a political freedom that we would not change with any country in the world. Everybody in America knows that our manners and customs have been democratic for centuries, while in France and England they have been ever aristocratic. Americans, we know, always feel at home on German soil.

But the Kaiser, you will say, speaks of "his monarchy," therefore must the Germans be Fuerstenknechte, (servants of Princes.)

First of all, as to the phrase "Fuerstenknechte." Does not the King of England speak of his "subjects"? That word irritates a German, because he is conscious that he is not a subject, but a citizen of the empire. Yet he will not infer from the English King's use of the term in formal utterances that an Englishman is a churl, a "servant of his King." That would be a superficial political conception.

As to our Princes, most of us, including the Social Democrats, are glad in our heart of hearts that we have them. As far back as our history runs, and that is more than 2,000 years, we have had Princes. They have never been more than their name, "Fuerst," implies, the first and foremost of German freemen, "primi inter pares." Therefore they have never acted independently, never without taking the people into counsel. That would have been contrary to the most important fundamental principles of German law; hence our people have never been "de jure" without their representatives. Even in the times of absolute monarchy the old "estates of the realm" had their being as a representative body, and wherever and whenever these privileges were suppressed it was regarded as a violation of our fundamental rights and is so still regarded.

Our princely houses are as old as our monasteries, our cities, and our cathedrals. A thousand years ago the Guelphs were a celebrated family, and the Wettins have ruled over their lands for eight centuries. In the twelfth century the Wittelsbachs and Thuringians were Princes under the great Kaisers of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. Among these great families the Hapsburgs (thirteenth century) and the Hohenzollerns (fifteenth century) are quite young. All have their roots in Germany and belong to the country.

We glory in our Princes. They link our existence with the earliest centuries of our history. They preserve for us the priceless independence of our small home States.

We are accused of militarism. What is this new and terrible crime? Since the years of the wars of liberation against France and Napoleon we have had what amounts practically to universal conscription. Only two generations later universal suffrage was introduced. The nation has been sternly trained by its history in the ways of discipline and self-restraint. Germans are very far from mistaking freedom for license and independence for licentiousness.

Germany has a long past. She enjoys the inheritance of an original and priceless civilization. She holds clearly formulated ideals. To the future she has all this to bequeath and, in addition, the intellectual wealth of her present stage of development. Consider Germany's contributions to the arts, the poetical achievements of the period of Schiller and Goethe, the music of Handel, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; the thought systems of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel!

The last decade has reawakened these great men in the consciousness of the German Nation. Enriched by the consciousness and message of an intellectual past, our people were moving forward to new horizons.

At that moment the war hit us. If you could only have lived these weeks in Germany I do not doubt that what you would have seen would have led your ripe experience to a fervent faith in a Divinely guided future of mankind. The great spiritual movement of 1870, when I was a boy growing up, was but a phantom compared to July and August of 1914. Germany was a nation stirred by the most sacred emotions, humble and strong, filled with just wrath and a firm determination to conquer--a nation disciplined, faithful, and loving.

In that disposition we have gone to war and still fight. As for the slanders of which we have been the victims, ask the thousands of Frenchmen who housed German soldiers in 1870 and 1871, or ask the Belgians of Ghent and Bruges! They will give you a different picture of the "Furor Teutonicus." They will tell you that the "raging German" generally is a good-natured fellow, ever ready for service and sympathy, who, like Parsifal, gazes forth eagerly into a strange world which the war has opened to his loyal and patriotic vision.

KARL LAMPRECHT.

REVEILLE

By JOHN GALSWORTHY.

[From King Albert's Book.]

In my dream I saw a fertile plain, rich with the hues of Autumn. Tranquil it was and warm. Men and women, children, and the beasts worked and played and wandered there in peace. Under the blue sky and the white clouds low-hanging, great trees shaded the fields; and from all the land there arose a murmur as from bees clustering on the rose-colored blossoms of tall clover. And, in my dream, I roamed, looking into every face, the faces of prosperity, broad and well favored--of people living in a land of plenty, of people drinking of the joy of life, caring nothing for the morrow. But I could not see their eyes, that seemed ever cast down, gazing at the ground, watching the progress of their feet over the rich grass and the golden leaves already fallen from the trees. The longer I walked among them the more I wondered that never was I suffered to see the eyes of any, not even of the little children, not even of the beasts. It was as if ordinance had gone forth that their eyes should be banded with invisibility.

While I mused on this, the sky began to darken. A muttering of distant winds and waters came traveling. The children stopped their play, the beasts raised their heads; men and women halted and cried to each other: "The River--the River is rising! If it floods, we are lost! Our beasts will drown; we, even we, shall drown! The River!" And women stood like things of stone, listening; and men shook their fists at the black sky and at that traveling mutter of the winds and waters; and the beasts sniffed at the darkening air.

Then, clear, I heard a Voice call: "Brothers! The dike is breaking! The River comes! Link arms, brothers; with the dike of our bodies we will save our home! Sisters, behind us, link arms! Close in the crevices, children! The River!" And all that multitude, whom I had seen treading quietly the grass and fallen leaves with prosperous feet, came hurrying, their eyes no longer fixed on the rich plain, but lifted in trouble and defiance, staring at that rushing blackness. And the Voice called: "Hasten, brothers! The dike is broken. The River floods!"