The Daily News. THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 1915. AMERICA'S ATTITUDE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 233, 11 March 1915, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 1915. AMERICA'S ATTITUDE.

Since the unmistakabe rebuff to America, contained in Mr. Asquith's speecli, which was an effective reply to the American Note on the rights of neutrals in the. war zone, little has been heard 0;i tlie point from the land of the Stars and Stripes. Tlie position of our Amierican cousins is capably dealt with by the Dunedin Star, which says that, having failed to take advantage of the unique opportunity that was open to it to become an important if not a decisive factor on behalf of peace, America cannot now hope to speak with weight in the inomentous issues which confront the statesmen of the old world. Had the Government of President Wilson expressed without hesitation unmistakably their detestation and horror of the crime against humanity that the armies of Germany, under direct instructions from their Kaiser and generals, had wrought in Belgium, the views of the Government upon such relatively insignificant problems as contraband of war, blockades, and reprisals would have been listened with closer attention than is now given them. As the situation stands, the Allies are adopting the policy they think best by way of answer to German threats of wholesale piracy and murder. Nothing the United States can now say or do will stay their hand. America, seemingly, is under the delusion that it is possibe for one-half the world, and that the more important half, to re at war and for America's export trade to continue as usual. It is the realisation that it is not possible to run Avith the hare and hunt with the hounds that lias given birth to the reported change of tone in the American Press. That tone, hitherto, has been most satisfactory—not because, as many apparently think, it was friendly to and sympathetic with the Allies, but because it was on the si le of honor and humanity, and emphatic : .n its scorn of German kultur, the methods of its propagation, and its fruits. Tlie only possible excuse, therefore, for a change in tone and a changed relationship witli the Allies would and must be that the Allies have proved false to their standards of public morality, ordinary humanity, and international honor. The question arises: Have they? So far, we have seen no evidences of it. Nor are we likely to. Neither British, French nor Belgians would degrade themselves to the level of German kultur. They will not answer the sack of cities, the 'shooting in cold blood of countless civilians, the attacks on hospital ships, the wli.de doctrine of ('rightfulness with similar reprisals. Britons are not built that way. But they will, beyond doubt, take ell'ce'i.ive steps to prevent American traders

from supplying our enemies with the. means to carry on their malign onslaught upon themselves. If the American pnw and people only hate German outrages and (.iernian policy so long as their trad" (lees not suffer, then llm difference between them and their President is narrower than we have thought. Mr. Wilson has deliberately chosen the wrong path. The choice between honor and dishonor was his to make as much as it was that of the British Government when Germany submitted its "infamous proposal" that Britain should stand by and see Belgian neutrality violated and France shorn of her oversea colonies. Them were British politicians and newspapers, of which the Manchester Guardian and the Daily Xews were among the chief, that were prepared to take the path of dishonor, and, in the name of neutrality,

to leave Belgium and France to their

fate. It was the Government and the nation that saved the Empire from this "infamous" course, and, incidentally, from thei merited sssa of all good n en and women throughout the ages, and its certain doom that would have -folio's wl. President Wilson was confronted with practically the same choice. It was for America to say, through its President, whether it would decide for neutrality and trade and dollars, or, like little Belgium, fling these to the winds and decide for honor and humanity. How the President decided all the world knows. America to-day has no status in the councils of the nations, and her Government and press may fret and fume at will, but this will not affect the Allies continuing their economic pressure. Happily there is no reason to believe that the great majority of thoughtful Americans will amend their opinion of German kultur, or question tlvc justice of the Allies' policy. These know that their country cannot hope to buy and sell as was its wont; they know that the reprisals to which the Allies will resort will ha.vc nothing of "ferocity" about them; and they know that their claim-!, as set forth in their own Government's Koto, will not bear inspection. We have no need to go further than the written words of the most famous American of liis day, ex-President Roosevelt, to leavn that among Americans who can lift their eyes beyond their own immediate "cabbage patch" the essential soundness and justice of the Allies' policy is admitted. Mr. Roosevelt, in his history of the war of 1812, writes:—

It isoften difficult to realise that in a clash* between two peoples not only may each side be in itself right, but each side may be right from his own slandpo'nt. A healthy and vigorous nation must obey the law of self-pre-servation. When it is engaged in a life and death grapple with a powerful foe it cannot too closely scan the damage it may be forced to do to neutral nations. On the other hand, it is just as little to be expected that one of these neutral nations, when wronged, will refrain from retaliation merely because the injuries are inflicted by the aggressor as a regrettable but necessary incident of a conflict with someone else.

That the present war is, as far as the British Empire is concerned, a war of self-preservation cannot be denied. There was no weaker nor more presumptuous statement in tlie first American Note than that which asserted that the Allies' policy towards neutral ships and cargoes was not required under "the principle of self-preservation." Mr. Asquith's speech has cleared the air. If America, as a' neutral, thinks she is wronged, if is open to her to retaliate, but President Wilson cannot hope, even with tlie' expressed satisfaction of the German and American press to support him, to take the direction and control of British policy out of the capable hands in which they are now in order to transfer them to his own. The object lessons that are furnished by Mexico in the New Worid and by Europe in the Old alike forbid it.