DUTCH NEUTRALITY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1714, 19 May 1917, Page 1

DUTCH NEUTRALITY.

“TORPEDOED AND DEAD”

HOLLAND'S UNNEUTRAL •THOUGHTS. GERMANY'S OFFENDING SUBMARINES.. [ln the following letter lo the New York Evening Post, Prolessor Hendrik IV. van Loon, of the Cornell University, explains why “truly neutral sentiments” towards Germany do not exist in the Dutch kingdom.] A number of special despatches to the American press have drawn attention to the massing of German troops along the Dutch frontier. The erection of an electric fence, similar from that which separates Belgium from Holland, has been frequently mentioned, and the conclusion has been drawn that Germany intends to invade Holland while the Dutch canals and dikes are frozen, and the defences of the so-called “waterline” is useless on account of the continued heavy frost. Will yon very kindly publish the following explanation of some of these facts ? Nothing in Holland is frozen in the month of March. The soil of the. defensive '“waterline” is in a condition popularly known as “mush” or soup,” It would make ideal mud, just at present. The large number of German troops on the Dutch frontier is partly a myth; and partly it is accounted for in another way. The exodus of prisoners of war from Germany (both civil and military) has been very serious during the last torn months. For five months these Russians, Belgians, Poles, Frenchmen, and Englishmen have been joined by a different class of malcontents, to wit, German soldiers. The iron cross, both first and

second class, is no longer a rarity behind the windows of Dutch pawnshops. According to the dry ollicial enumeration of this peculiar Teutonic immigration, from one lo (wo dozen men may lie expected almost every day. Some cotuc in civilian (dollies. Most of them arc in uniform. Some firing their guns, and often the gun which they have taken from the frontier guard who tried to prevent them from crossing into Holland. Many of them have seal their families ahead. They are by no means the must undesirable elements of the German Army. Without exception they are able to delineate their feelings, and lo explain the motives which have turned them into perpetual exiles from I heir own fatherland. The refrain of their stories is this: “Too much glory, and too little to eat." They have seen fat laws and brothers and cousins killed and maimed. They and their families have gone hungry for a glorious future in which nobody believes any longer. They try to save what can be saved, and (hey risk their lives lo gain liberty from the oppressive yoke of Imperial success and civilian starvation.

PURPOSE OF BORDER GUARD. Of course (hose few hundred German deserters will not a (Teel the Jinal result of (lie war. But they are bad for the moral at home and for (be reputation of Germany abroad. Hence many German troops are used to guard the frontier. They are not there to keep people out. They are there to keep people

As for the sinking of the Dutch ships, this does not mean any particular hostility toward-; Holland. It is perl of a general plan.

Some day Ibis war will be over. Then the German ships now lying safely in German ports will have to find new markets for the home products. They will he obliged to compete with the rest of the world. The smaller the tonnage at the disposal of the other neutral countries, the easier it will be for Germany to regain the lost commercial territory. Hence, Swedish and Danish and Norwegian and Dutch and Greek and Spanish ships are being destroyed. There is little danger connected with this form of submarine warfare. It is much easier to sink a harmless and bona fide neutral than a belligerent. There is the same difference as between hunting tigers in the jungle and domestic cows in a pasture. When the attack has been a bit too brutal, and when public senti-

ment in the friendly neutral State has been aroused, then the claim agent of the Imperial Government sets to work. He makes some vague promises about compensation at some-indefinite future date; he wastes excellent wood-pulp in endless letters, and knives everything as it was. HOLLAND’S SERVICE TO NEIGHBOURS. Of course, there are awkward moments in this game. But in the end it is worth the risk. If by any chance there should occur a break between the neutral and the Central Bowers, the blame can lie placed upon the English, who by doing this or by omitting that, by buying up the neutral press, and by their general campaign of prevarication, have blinded the neutral’s eyes to the high moral purpose of the German submarine campaign. ■ For the last two years the people of Holland have looked after their neighbours as well as they could. They have tended the German sick and wounded when they come to Holland’s shores. They have ted thousands of hungry German children. They have sent ambulances to Germany. They have tried to remember tlie many charming virtues of. an older German generation, and they have given a hard-pressed nation the benefit of the doubt. In return for this conciliatory attitude, the Germans have sunk the finest ships of the Dutch commercial navy. They have killed many peaceful sailors. They have honeycombed the country with treason, and have hired a band of professional scribblers to promote the German cause in the public press. They have sent to The, Hague a diplomatic representative, who organises war-scares, and whose subordinates use their official position to spread false reports by means of unsuspecting Dutch newspapers.

For two anil a-balf years, as we said, the Dutch people have fried to be good neighbours. In return for their kindness f’ -y have been systematically robbed of their chief means of subsistence, their trading vessels; they have been lied to, and they have been cheated, and they have been asked to bear it in the name of the Freedom of the Seas. Unless Dutch territory is actually invaded, the people of Holland will not go to war. An offensive action would be suicidal. A defensive one, on the other hand, could be prolonged indefinitely. This is well known on the other side of the border, and undoubtedly it will be acted upon. But, meanwhile, let us be spared further talk about “truly neutral sentiments” and nonsense about the “brotherly love between the two great branches of the common Teutonic stock." As far as Dutch neutrality is concerned, it was torpedoed on the 22nd of last month. It lies buried somewhere off the Scilly Islands, ft is dead.

The War Office tried to stem this tide. Medical Boards were formed, and the abuse of the local doctor examining his own patients wasswept away. These boards were very efficient. But they became the target of every political hack, and almost every tribunal rejoiced to hold them up to contempt. Utterly ignorant people enjoyed cheap humour at their expense when doctors were found to have differed about some doubtful ease —as if that was a new phenomenon or as if differences of opinion were confined to recruiting doctors. Unfortunately some private doctors lent themselVes to this business by giving certificates too freely and thus placing the unfortunate members of the Medical Boards in a quandary. This period saw a very large number of men rejected who should have been recruited, and who would have been recruited but for the politicians, the tribunals, and the easy-going medical certificates, It also saw a great many men who did not bade like being fit for service in six months discharged altogether. Much more than six months have passed, and many of these discharged youths are now quite well again. Many of; the rejected men, too, are quite well. And (he political pressure has largely disappeared.