America

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 4, 6 January 1915, Page 5

America

QUESTION OF* CONTRABAND. [United Press Association.] Washintgon, January o. The Ship Purchase Bill before the Senate was made strictly a party measure. Senator Lodge described it as thoroughly vicious, economically and politically, and the grossest kind of subsidy. Senator Root opposed it on the ground of the possibility of the Government's good faith being questioned should it be discovered that any goods were conveyed and destined for belligerents. Renter adds that ic is understood that Great Britain will give assurances that she will not interfere with copper shipments to Italy if consigned to well-known firms in Italian ships; and similarly with regard to shipments to Sweden and Holland, hut the position is not clear whether the cargoes must he in Swedish or Dutch ships. The Daily Telegraph's Washington correspondent states that Mr Page informed President Wilson that Britain's reply would he satisfactory to the President. Some concessions would he made but others refused. The correspondent further states that beef and cotton shippers, and not the Ger-man-Americans, were responsible for President Wilson's action. Southern cotton-growers are in a bad way, and their irritation and influence counted with President. Wilson.

MR ROOSEVELT'S PROTEST. With regard to the duty of the United States, Mr Roosevelt, in a recent article in the New York Times, wrote: "It will never be possible in any war to commit a clearer breach of international morality than was committed by Germany in the invasion and subjugation of Belgium and in violation of the fundamental principles of the Hague Conventions. !

"If the United States Had a serious purpose when it entered into these Conventions, then its plain duty, as a trustee of civilisation, is to investigate the charges of violation of Hague Conventions. If an investigation is made and the charges prove to be well founded, then the duty of the States is to take whatever action may be necessary to vindicate the principles of international law.

"The spiritless and selfish type of neutrality that we are observing in the present war will be remembered by other nations in the event of , war against us, and inasmuch as we have not made a single protest against Germany's practices forbidden by Hague Conventions, it would be ridiculous humiliation for us to make the slightest appeal for assistance if ever we should suffer in like fashion.

"When the Belgian people complained of violations of the Hague Tribunal, it was a mockery; it was a timid ; unworthy abandonment of duty on the part of the United States for President Wilson to refer them back to the Hague Court, when he knew that the Hague Court was less than a shadow unless the United States, by doing its clear duty, gave the Hague Court some substance. If the Hague Conventions represented nothing but the expression of feeble aspirations towards decency uttered only in tune of profound peace, and not to be even expressed above a whisper when, with awful bloodshed and suffering, the conventions were broken, then it was idle to enter into them.

"The extent to which our action should go may properly be the subject of discussion. But that.there should be some action is beyond discussion, unless, indeed, we ourselves are content to take the view that treaties, conventions, and international engagements and agreements of all kinds are to be treated by us and by everybody else as what they have been authoritatively declared to be, 'scraps of paper,' the writing on which,is intended for no better purpose than temporarily to amuse the feeble-minded." Mr Roosevelt concludes: "It must always be kept in mind that we cannot expect the nation against whose actions we protest to accept our position as warranted unless we make it clear that we have both the will amt the power to interfere on behalf of that nation if, in its turn, it is oppressed l„ other words, we must s iow that we believe in right, and therefore living up to our promises in good.faith, and furthermore that we are both able and ready to put might! behind right." '