AMERICA & THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2548, 24 August 1915, Page 7

AMERICA & THE WAR

—♦——- A N.Z. BUSINESS MAN'S • - . - •'; / . AFTER A THREE MONTHS' TOUS _ The attitude of 'America in regard to the. war was reforred to yesterday by L- D. Paterson, of Messrs. Gib-" sons and Paterson, Ltd. , Wanganui, • lias just-returned from America. Air. Paterson , left New Zealand in March last and made an oxtendcd tour of the U.S.A. As the truo position taken by America regarding t-ho war does not 1 seem to bo duly understood here, said Mr. Patersoi, it. may he worth while to give the impressions that I have drawn from a three .months' trip throughout its numerous States—impressions formulated from numerous interviews, many of them from men; of distinction . and woiglifc, who comproliend the minds of tlieir' countrymen as no stranger can. do.•. ■; .; . Without exceptionall that"! came in contact with are Pro-British to the core, and amongst thorn were several Germans of the , present generation, peaceful and law-abiding-citizens of tlio United States, each conscious that the Fatherland must be defeated'to save itself... There are also many communities, in America of ' strictly _ pro-German sympathies—the inevitable in a country where some twenty millions of its one hundred .million.population.are of Teutonic stock, .eight million odd being of the'present generation: In all Ameri-can-.cities German dailies arc published, each of them-—it is safe to say—repr©. sentative'of misrepresentation an<l calumny, but posing, forsooth, as' heralds . of truth. No other country in this world ha's so- cosmopolitan a population -as the ' United States. Take'an averaged-sized city , like San I'rancisco; you . can. eat a .meal cooked in any language there. Newspapers are published ■ daily in French,. German, Italian, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Swedish, Danish, Servian, Swiss, Spanish, and Russian. Little■;wonder then that America .has always endeavoured to keep itself clear of . entanglements in Old World diplo- • macy. • ■ America, has no locus standi ; whatever regarding tlio breaking of Belgian neutrality as she was not one °*\ -® 1 ® Powers that guaranteed it.; She stands ~to-day;,. champion,., of neutral rights .and .-non-combatant -'humanity—, in.r fact, in the case of. Germany v. Civilisation, the Onit-ed States holds a"rief for : Civilisation, and will • to tlio Smaller, nations have -been'.too wmd M: recent ciFectiially, the attacks { if, flipping and their citizens,, so' that ,ali the neutral rights seeni to ' hang oii- President ■.Wilson's pen. '• 3lr. Wilson is shaping no now course ■when., proclaiming the right of neutrals against-.belligerents, which ho has done —let-.us rememberr-oii both -sides. In previous wars between naval Powers, .disputes 'have always' arisen , between neutrals desiring the widest possible immunity for their ships or goods, and belligerents seeking to use'their naval strength to the utmost limit permitted 'by international practice, and such differences must, always bo expected be-. • cause the international rules are not ■as well defined and positive as are the Jaws t*hat prevail in a civilised oountr.v. the. meaning of which can be referred to the, Government and promptly -sottied.' 'And, furthermore, when a neutral Government is urged by its citizens to • remonstrate with a belligerent upon the exercise;of any rights the belligerent claims, _ it cannot—unless convinced 1 . that, thero is no snbstance. : to tho grisvjnce—decline to' represent the case of its' subjects. This the American Administration did as respect the right of search:" i" ->•-.'■ : y v ' Garnian Covernment Conaemried, .The vast- majority of Americans condemn the German Government, but not ■ from, racial sympathy with England nor from traditional friendliness to Franco,, but.,becauso tlio reading of the diplomatic correspondence in the, first half of -August, 1914, convinced them that, Germany was the aggressor, and has put .herself utterly in; the. wrong by the: invasion of Belgium; and Germany, conscious of this' feeling, 'has strenuously, endeavoured through the efforts of an elaborate propaganda. ■ to' change the American- front. The most' striking illustration of .Germany's' failure in this particualr direction is the return to tho Fatherland of Dr. Dornburg, but "not .with, the goods."-His efforts to .-in-, fluence public opinion in America excited; no little comment in the German journals, .they; generally ■ attributing-the . to- unity of with England, \which. they consider makes for sympathy; ... Bryan, - of undoubted pro-German sympathies, found the Cabinet no placo to, air . his views, and dramatically resigned;;, though an advocate; of peace, he seems .singularly unablo, to hold his own. Aid Senator Stone, of-like sym.pat'nies, tho. apparent., tool of' tie proGorman'organisation in America--Twnich; claims, to represent twenty millions of ■ German-Americans—has received similar, discouragement to the various petitions of this vast organisation lodged through him to the Senate, all based upon the far too friendly attitude of the "United •States to England., And let it hero be understood that this organisation 'does not stop at attempting to gain 'Amerioan- sympathy for Germany, but its objective is to cause a rupture between. England and America. In reply .to a letter received from Senator Stone to tho effect that the lUnited, States' were showing partiality '■to'.Britain, a letter that brought to a' head the German-American, agitation ' against the munitioning, of the Allies by "tho. American armament firms—the cause of much bitterness amongst this Teutonic stock—President Wilson pointed out in his reply, that the situation was simply the inevitable sequel to the /British control of the sea. It is the business of a belligerent operating on : the high seas—not the duty of. a neutral—to prevent contraband leaching jthe enemy, ' President Wilson's Great Difficulty. The cosmopolitan nature of America is" enough to mako President Wilson's position one of great difficidty. He is confronted by a world ■ situation . without parallel in history, and his lot is not a happy one: His' Government has declared itself neutral' in letter and in •spirit, and the people have been charged to maintain an impartial neutrality, and the' President is trying hard to preservo it. -Even before war pictures aro screened in' the many thousands of picture theatres throughout the States, tho President's message that no expression'of feeling be shown by the 1 .audience, invariably acts as "a curtain-raiser. And throughout many offices one is confronted by tli.e notice: "Don't talk war! iWe are neutral." But where brute force is on the one side and right on the other, neutrality cannot mean inf difference, for tinder such conditions ono could not bo neutral without moral degradation, and so I, openly disregarded the request whenover met, and found that all consider that Germany stands against freedom, .England-and Franco stand for it. Owing to this marked foreign element In her population, America has to face possibilities incidental to internal disruption, and that -fact, I think, accounts to a great measure for the over-strong tendency of Mr. Wilson's Notes to England regarding American shipping; the producing of - an overpowering reply from Sir Edward Groy suiting the.Pro sident's objective to seemingly invito his German-Americans upstairs when he is ' literally kicking them down. A clover German cartoon from Munich illustrates this point. It shows the President { ta,din£ja. j>aroal to. a. British; lore!*,,

with the remarks: "Here's another sample of my ammunition. I've wrapped it up, as you sec, in one of my littlo protests, but you needn't take that too seriously."" Ammunition and Supplies. This ammunitioning of tho Allies by American firms in this war, where ammunition plays so largo a part, will undoubtedly provo a factor in tho ultimate result, 1 and tbo necessary curtailment of this source of supply, whicli would bo' the inevitable were America ■ to declare war upon Germany,_ would be * a serious obstaclo to tho Allied cause", '' which at present appears to requiro am- " munition more urgently than men, so it > is questionable if America, by entering • the fray, would be of more service to us 1 than at the moment. Her army is but 050,000 strong, and her navy weak, and presumably would not bo_ required if 1 available. In Boston I visited ■ larga 5 boot, factories, where the hundreds of " employees were working from seven ih the morning until eleven at night, busily engaged in manufacturing footwear j for Russia. Every week steamers of nil s desoriptions are leaving New York with [ ammunition, clothing, horses ; and mules -■ for the Allies, and in quantities almost ( innumerable. I doubt if we in New Zealand realise L the magnitude of the service which the , United States Government and its rej presontatives abroad have rendered in : protection of British subjects in the bel--1 ligerent countries; ,tho looking after our , prisoners of war m Germany alone has ( become a-gigantic task. America'is indeed friendly to Britain. l The genuine cordiality that met me at r every turn of my trip could not possibly have so expressed itself were the sym- ■ pathies of my associates antagonistic to : my own, and it is well that it is so, for ■ wo New Zealanders are commercially , closely tied to tho United States, and should! bo moro so now that the Panama Canal is open, as that great undertaking- makes .the populous eastern half of that important country our nearest big 1 market, and' the placing of meat _ and ' wool on the free, list and tho considerable reduction of duty upon butter and ' cheese makes North America a candidate for 75 per cent, of all the goods that we export.