MORE SUBMARINE ISSUES

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2919, 3 November 1916, Page 6

MORE SUBMARINE ISSUES

« It is now practically certain that the Marina case will figure as one of those which have periodically created a state of extreme tension in the relations between Germany and the United States. As the New York Herald has remarked, present indications are that the M&rina incident was a deliberate violation of the laws of war and of Germany's pledges to America. The. same newspaper further remarks that if Americans have been lost (it is now reported that six were killed and two injured President Wilson's action must be sharp, insistent, and unmistakable. In view of the Presidential election this month this pronouncement gains an interest of which the past vacillation and weakness of Pkesident Wilson would otherwise rob it. The sinking of the Marina, as the faots are stated, was a submarine outrage of tho worst type—an attack upon an unresisting merchant ship in circumstances which made loss of life inevitable—and though the State Department is proceeding in the matter. at its usual leisurely pace, it can hardly fail to reach the conclusion that this event represents a direct and flagrant breach of tho undertaking which Germany gave five months ago to amend and modify her methods of submarine warfare. In the Note dispatched on April 18, 1916, the United States Government laid it down that: "If tho Imperial (German) Govornment should not now, without delay, proclaim and make'effective renunciation of its present methods of submarine ' warfare against passenger and cargo ships; the United States Government can have no othor choice than_ to break off completely diplomatic relations with the German Government." In accepting Germany's reply, tho American Government declined to depart from this attitude or modify it in the slightest, degree. Taking the facts of the Marina case as they aro reported, the conditions have arisen which : were contemplated in the American Note as affording occasion for a breach of diplomatic relations. Unless the facts have been incorrectly reported, the United Government must give effect to its threat, or eat its own formal words.

Taking eventp over a period it doe 6 not 6eem i . very likely that President Wilson will go to extremes or tako any really strong stand ovor the submarino issue. He has proceeded from Note to Note' without reaching any definite goal, and the events of the brief submarino campaign in American coastal waters have been illuminating as showing how far he is prepared to go. in meeting the German view of the questions at stake. Not only German merchant submarines, but the raider U53 have been permitted to enter American waters, and there are some grounds for suspecting that the voyages of these distinct typesof submarines have a definite relation to one another. Neither desiro for advertisement nor the shipment of a barge-load or two of cargo across the. Atlantic accounts very convincingly for Germany going to tho trouble and expense of fitting out merchant submarines, but an ample explanation would be afforded if it proved, as has been suggested, that the main function of these craft is to convey supplies to commerce-raiders. it America acts in the spirit of the April Note an end will bo made by a short-cut route of the difficulties arising out of the German submarine operations which President Wilson and his Government have recently tolerated _in American coastal waters. Presidential election day is now sufficiently near to raise interesting possibilities as to the course that may be-pursued, even though President Wilson's past performances Icavs little room for hope of any decisive action on his part.