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OCR
ISSUES AND EVENTS
Germany is leading just now it is because she has been the
most severely hit by the ‘interruption of international rela.
tions. But the other belligerents and all European neutral
nations have been taking steps in the same direction.
And the n2tlOl‘lS.Wlll not return.to the old state of affairs.
The ideal of national self-sufficiency was nowhere more
widely discussed than in France before the war. Why should
a nation, whose populatipndoes not grow, which has an enor-
mous colonial empire within a day’s journey, compete in the
markets of the world?‘ Why should she invest her savings
in foreign countries, risking income in time of war? Surely
France has learned the lesson that in international relations
the creditor is at the mercy of the debtor.
“Ear-Marked Ex.”
Russia. on the other hand, is in the position of debtor.
A great share of her exports was always "earmarked," so
to speak, for the payment of interest. Her debt will be
swelled immensely by foreign war loans, and by foreign im-
ports. for which she cannot pay with grain, owing to the clos-
ing of the Dardanelles. Moreover, so long as England holds
Gibraltar and the Suez canal and so long as the Baltic re-
. mains a closed sea whose three narrow channels can be easily
barred by England's position and by England's navy, Russia's
export will never be free, even if the Dardanelles were forced.
And she has felt the heavy burden which an agricultural
country has to bear when it goes to war without a sufficient
industrial equipment for the production of modern war
material.
Russia has a fair chance of carrying out the economic ideal
209
of her nationalists-a self-suflicient Russian empire. All this,
if I can read the signs of the times, will not make for an
increase of foreign business relations. The original basis
of international exchange is the diversity of natural economic
conditions existing in different countries.
The growing size of the different business territories has
greatly diminished the importance of this cause. Natural
advantages of production are replaced by artificial advan-
tages, which are brought about partly by inventions and
partly by organization. If security rather than wealth be-
comes the aim of that organization, its scope will be almost
unlimited.
I do not believe foreign trade will stop. Small countries,
like Denmark and Switzerland, cannot hope to do without
foreign trade. They must continue on the precarious basis
on which they have suffered so much to-day, if they do not
of their own free will enter the commercial federation of
their neighbors.
he young countries of the new world will have to go on
producing raw material and they will have to find material
for them. The big exporting industries in Euro e which
are accustomed to have a big surplus production wil be loath
to give up profitable markets. Big ports and steamship com-
panies will go on catering for trade. Outlying colonial pos-
sessions will not be given up.
But the obstacles to foreign trade will increase, not dimin-
ish it; that trade may perhaps become more intensified in
some selected neutral parts of the world. But the economic
dependence of the great nations upon each other will not be
as close as it has been.
Protection of Neutral Rights at Sea
Prof. William R. Shepherd of Columbia Uni-
versity, has rendered all fair minded men a great
service in collecting under the above title the docu-
ments bearing upon issues between the United
States and England or Germany. Probably the most
remarkable single fact, evidenced in this collection,
is the one that the announcement of the British
admiralty of Nov. 2d, 1914, proclaiming the North
Sea a military area, was not contained in papers
published by the Department of State on May 27th,
1915, supposed to present the important documents
exchanged previous to that time between the United
States and the European belligerents.
Convinced that physical and financial endurance
is the supreme test, believing also that national
existence may depend upon the issue of the struggle,
Great Britain and Germany, it would seem are
striving to starve each other out. Impelled by such
ideas they try to render the process of exclusion
effectual by the only means that each has it its dis-
posal, the one by ships that course over the seas, the
other by ships that course under the seas.
On behalf of this new mode of submarine warfare
it is asserted that, because of the special nature of
the submarines, they cannot observe the rules of
international law which apply solely to the kind of
warships in existence at the time such rules were
formulated. If belligerent merchantmen, conse-
quently, were unarmed,‘ and were they neither to
hoist the neutral flags, nor to attempt escape, nor
to resist visit and search, nor to summon aid by wire-
less, those rules.could be heeded, so far at least as
the safety of human life is concerned.
Compliance with these conditions, however, might
be more than human nature under the circumstances
would be disposed to yield. Nor would it meet the
clear regulations of international law which provides
for an assurance of the safety of the passengers
and crew of a merchantman before the vessel is
destroyed.
Just to what extent the undoubted right of
neutrals to travel on a belligerent merchantman,
having contraband on board, confers the privilege
also of involving their government in grave compli-
cations on their account, is a question no easier to
answer than the one that concerns the extent to
which such a government is bound to protect the
property of its citizens in areas controlled by bel-
ligerents.
Under the tremendous pressure of contending
interests in which the very existence of the warring
nations may hang in the balance, each of the two
great belligerents has accused the other of com-
mitting illegal and inhuman acts, and each has
adopted measures of reprisal accordingly. In the
belief that it is invoking the supreme law of self-
preservation, each has felt itself compelled to set
aside an international law that aims to uphold the.,;'.',‘., V
rights of neutrals as equal, if not superior, to the
claims of belligerents.
Mindful of these truths the United States, early
in the course of the struggle, proposed to the bel-
ligerents that they adopt the Declaration of London
as a temporary code of naval warfare. This sug-
gestion it withdrew on learning that Great Britain
insisted upon modifications of that code which were
quite at variance with it. Then, after Great Britain
had declared the North Sea a military area, for the
purpose of shutting our direct commerce with Ger--
many, and Germany had retaliated by declaring the
waters around Great Britain a war zone, with a
similar object in view, the United States proposed
the adoption of certain mutual concessions which
would soften the rigors of warfare and uphold the
rights of neutrals. This proposal Germany ac-
cepted in substance, and Great Britain answered,
not only by rejection, but by virtually prohibiting
neutral trade with Germany altogether. The pro-
test of the United States against such a prohibition
has remained unheeded for many months. Finally,
in the notes following the German attacks on the
Gulflight, the Cushing and the Lusitania, wherein
the United States protests against the loss of in-
nocent lives, the idea of mutual concessions appears
once more with this country as its sponsor. Whether
it will find favor at the hands of both belligerents is
yet to be determined.
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