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214
The United States Government has
never contended, no Government has
ever contended, that a submarine has
not the right to use any force at its
command against a vessel which
seeks to resist or to escape capture.
What this Government and other gov-
ernments have striven to do in the long
submarine wrangle has been to enforce
the principle that the torpedo must not
be launched or the guns hred without
giving the ship an opportunity to stop
and the passengers a chance to leave
the ship, and that, even if the ship at-
tempts to escape, the submarine must
stop firing when the ship gives up her
Hight.
Clearly enough, the Patria was bent
on escaping, whether it was a real or
fancied submarine, whether the wake of
a torpedo was seen or was imagined.
So not even a charge of violated inter-
national law could lie against the sub-
marine. And, anyhow, nothing hap-
pened; so there is no chance that this
case will ever be taken up seriously
by the State Department.
1 t 1!
GERMANY AND FRANCE TO
SEND THE DISABLED TO
SWITZERLAND.
Berlin.-A definite agreement in re-
gard to the transfer to Switzerland of
wounded and sick French and German
prisoners of war has been reached be-
tween Germany and France.
A German proposal to extend the
agreement so as to cover civil pris-
oners has been accepted in principle by
the French.
More than 700 incapacitated French
and German prisoners are already
lodged in Switzerland.
in 1: nor
JAPAN AFTER TEUTON TRADE.
Tokio.-An important revision of the
Japanese tariff is provided for by a bill
introduced into the House of Repre-
sentatives yesterday by the govern-
ment. '
The measure is chiefly designed to
encourage domestic manufacturing as a
step to gaining more foreign markets
for manufactured goods. For this
reason the changes of tariff involved are
chiefly reductions on raw materials
needed in Japan for the enlargement
of its manufacturing industries, includ-
ing those of medicine. It represents
another effort of the government to
assist in the taking over of German and
Austrian markets.
The specific objects of the bill are:
First, to make hitherto ‘dutiable ar-
ticles duty free with the idea of en-
couraging domestic manufactured goods
and the export of the same while
checking the importation of these goods
from abroad. Second, to lower the
tariff on some articles’ to protect and
encourage domestic manufacturing, and.
third, to increase the current tariff on
some articles to protect home in-
dustries.
The articles affected by the proposed
revision include drugs and chemicals,
dye stuffs, iron, other metals and ma-
chinery.
The articles belonging to the first
category, namely, those placed on the
free list, include linseed, hempseed,
eastor seed, rubber seed, indigo seed,
hides and skins, horn, ebony, cocoa
leaves, eatechu leaves and other tan-
ning extracts, borate of soda, chloride
of cobalt, coal tar, nickel, iron radium
and radium salt, and poplar wood.
The articles on which it is proposed
to lower the duty include sulphate of
ISSUES AND EVENTS
quinine, sulphate of cocaine, fused
silica, gas, oil or steam engines of more
than 50,000 kilograms in weight, and
dynamos when they are combined with
these engines. . . ,
Under group three, upon which it is
proposed to levy an increased duty, are
milk acid, citric acid,‘ peroxide of
hydrogen, santonin, pepsin, tincture of
opium, and certain grades of iron tubes.
Some of the products affected come
from the United States.
in n- It
LANDED IN RUSSIA.
Canadian Construction Gang of 570
Men Left to Face Famine.
Pierre B. Lawrence, a French Cana-
dian of American citizenship, came back
yesterday from Northern Russia and
told some of the diliiculties which have
been encountered in constructing the
railroad from Kola on the White Sea, to
hitch up with the line for Petrograd,
by which the Allies hope to supplement
the Archangel route for munitions.
When he left there last February there
was still a gap of forty-seven miles left,
he said, but it was covered by a rein-
deer service, and some of the supplies
were getting through. ‘
“Last October,” Mr. Lawrence said,
“advertisements appeared in Winnipeg
and other Canadian cities calling for
men used to railroad building in cold
countries. An English company backed
them, and they got together 570 line,
husky chaps who had worked on the
Grand Trunk Pacific, the Canadian
Northern, and the Hudson Bay Line. I
was engaged as dock superintendent.
“They brought us down here to Wee-
hawken and took us aboard the Rus-
sian-American liner Czar. We got to
Russia in twelve days, but then found
that we were not at Kola at all, but at
Simienonono, a mere fishing village
which was shelled by the British during
the Crimean war. The nearest place
was Kandalasha, but that was twelve
miles away. We got in in a blinding
snowstorm, at the end of October, and
found it was about 10 degrees above
zero. They told us to be ready to land
next morning and we began to disem-
bark at 2 o'clock in the morning.
“We got the machinery off although
there was nothing but a beach and
we had to walk a Quarter of a mile to
get off the sand. The bosses came off
about 10 o'clock, and then suddenly the
steamer pulled out and left Archangel.
We asked for food and found all that
had been landed were three barrels of
green apples, two hams and one case
of eggs. Think of that for 570 men!
There was a rush fo: them and you can
’imagine the jam as a lot of husky
Irishmen and Scotchmen started scrap-
ping to get ‘the grub. Some of them
were shoved in the water but we got
them out all right.
“When we asked the boss what to do
he said, ‘Make out the best you can.’
He told us there was another ship
already two days overdue, and she
would have the provisions. Then she
didn't come, and they said she had been
torpedoed. It may be so, I cannot tell.
“VVe could get all the black bread and
tea we wanted from the Russians, but
there was no sugar. The Russians
would give you anything, only they
hadn't anything to give. There were
some huts near, and we pulled them
down and made shelters. Then there
were seventeen horses and we killed
five of them. There were plenty of
turnips, carrots and cabbages brought
from the South. They were just lying
about on the beach and we made stew
of those. So we had to live for five
weeks. In the end we got reindeer."
“When at last a ship arrived the first
thing she discharged was cases of beer
and barrels of rum, and for a time, at
least, Mr. Lawrence said, the construc-
tion gang seemed to have forgotten
their troubles.
“One day,” Mr. Lawrence went on,
“a Russian official, all covered with
medals, came along and said he repre-
sented the Department of Rivers and
Harbors. He said, ‘I suppose you can
give me accommodation for sixty-five
of my staff,’ and we had only got huts
for our own men. The boss said, ‘The
nerve of himl" and I told him it as
nearly as I could in French; so he took
his sixty-five aboard a Russian ship
and sailed for Archangel.”
According to Mr. Lawrence there was
trouble again in February with the
Russian authorities about the pay, and
the construction gang were driven by
Russian soldiers aboard a ship. But
the British Admiral interfered, and
forced the Russian authorities to live up
to their agreement, and give the men
a passage back to this country.
Altogether this expedition, Mr.
Lawrence said, built seventeen miles
of track, but he had a rough sketch
showin the jam of vessels in the har-
bor wit out docking facilities and piles
of freight on the beach.
it an :-
T.HE GREAT IRISH CONVENTION
Arrangements are now completed for
the Irish Race Convention to be held
in New York on March 4th and 5th.
The leading Irish organizations in
America are taking up the matter very
earnestly and delegates have been ap-
pointed from nearly every State in the
Union.
: it It
THE ISSUE’S PHILOSOPHER.
“He who boasts of his descent, praises
the deeds of another.”
“Not even the Gods can fight against
necessity."-Old Greek Proverb.
“The child's business is playing."-
Victor Ayer.
“The legs of the stork are long, the
legs of the duck are short. Why worry."
-Old Japanese Proverb.
“He whom the Gods love dies young."
-Menander.
“Every land where a man is success-
ful is his native land.”-Plutus.
"Make
Caesar.
haste slowly.” - Augustus
“Gifts persuade even the Gods."-
Euripides.
"The. shoemaker should not go be-
yond his last."-Appelles.
"Do not yield to misfortunes, but go
more boldly to meet them."-Virgil.
“Moderation is the best temperance;
temperance is the best diet; and diet is
the best doctor."-Lorenzo the Mag-
iiifieent.
“Nature has good intentions, but can-
not carry them out."-Aristotle.