The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 1915.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 3993, 28 July 1915, Page 4

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 1915.

A Very Delicate Situation.

It, is clearly the position now that only a miracle can .save the United States from becoming involved in war with Germany. So longer i.s it found that Dr. Wilson and his Government are content merely to say to the world as was the case only a few weeks hack “that there is such a thing as a nation (as well as an individual) being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that she is right." What is realised to-day in the United States is that when a nation is dealing with another nation that acknowledges no law other than its own laws of expediencey efforts to secure wliat- is right by a mere appeal for treatment on fair lines are not at all likely to succeed. The announcement in this morning’s cable news that it is considered in the United States that further negotiations with Germany can only proceed on the restricted basis of the main point in dispute must, therefore, he regarded as very significant. In a most oncompromising cray the United States, as is well-known, Ims told Germany that her submarine policy is contrary not only to the laws of humanity hut also to the laws of war. .Hut that is not all. The United States is, it will have been noted, determined not to accept any modification of Germany’s murder policy which will safeguard American lives and American property only if certain precautions which limit the freedom of the seas to the United States are adhered to. As bluntly as the matter^could be put Washington lias in brief notified Berlin .that she will be satisfied with nothing short of an undertaking that as far as submarine warfare is concerned Germany will in future search noncombatant- vessels before attacking any which may happen to belong to the Allies and what is more that no vessel at all will be sunk until those on board are given ample opportunity to escape being murdered. The position is assuredly then that no further humbug in the matter is permissible on the part; of Germany. Tf the Huns do not climb down the United States will have to give way. In some quarters, it would seem, the belief is still entertained that war need not necessarily follow a disagreement on the question. A prominent Home journal “The Spectator,” for example, is of the opinion that the United States will merely break off friendly relations with Germany without actually going to war. “The United States,” it says, “might declare a commercial boycott against Germany. She might refuse either to receive the muchreduced amount of German exports that reaches her, or to send American goods of any kind through neutral ports to Germany. Or she might announce that in future she will help to ensure the safety of the seas by letting American ships of war escort merchantmen through the so-called war zone. Yet, again, she might- penalise Germany by seizing the valuable German merchantmen which, arc interned in American harbors. She might perhaps seize them one by one in response to German outrages as'they occurred.” The general opinion wo think however will bo that in such an event war will not bo avoidable. , Germany, it can be taken, will prefer war to humiliation at the hands of the United States. Everything, indeed, already tends to show that an extension of the great' struggle is daily coming nearer. On the one hand it will be seen that the German press is almost unanimously in support of a continuance by Germany of her submarine methods

unless Britain will give up her. blockado, .which is out-of the question; and on the other hand tiie United States is slowly but surely preparing for. tho worst possible-outcome of her negotiations with Germany, As far. as tho United States is concerned the Germans, it would soom, have for soniclittle time past not-been reckoning on her continued neutrality and, in this connection, it should come as no surprise if it should he found that a huge enemy organisation lias already been worked up in Uncle Sam’s (country. The great lesson which the United States may yet have to learn to , its cost in the matter of the present contest between right and might is that, on account of her delay in ranging herself on the side of right, she has allowed herself to he more seriously handicapped than any oilier Power that has been drawn into the struggle by the more extensive activities that have been possible on the part of the great section of her nation which, in tho event of war with Germany and her Allies, will constitute the enornv within her own gates.