UNITED STATES.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 March 1917, Page 5

UNITED STATES.

ARMING OF SHIPS. gONGRESS MUST AUTHORISE. (SPECIAL SESSION CALLED. New York, March 4. President Wilson has issued a statetaent to the effect that the old law will prevent his arming ships unless he is authorised to do so by Congress. New York, March 4.. President Wilson has called a special Session of the new Senate for Monday ' ' .\ GERMANY'S MEXICAN PLOT. FEELING IN BERLIN. New York, March 5. Mr. Cyril Brown, cabling from Berlin, says the news of the German plot has . teen received in Berlin with the utmost calmness. Newspapers say the betrayal of Germany's offer of an alliance with Mexico has been made capital of by President Wilson. ' The press contends that Germany is within her rights in proposing an alliance. The law of 181? forbids merchantmen attacking warships of an unhostile fower. THE DISCLOSURE UNFORTUNATE. London, March 5. Count Reventlow says that Germany's offer to Mexico is incomprehensible, because Mexico is unable to seize or to hold United States territory. _ The Frankfurter Zeitung admits that it was particularly unfortunate that sueh a very secret document fell into treacherous hands. The 'Cologne Gazette says that Germany's step was .conditional on the United States declaring war. It is general knowledge that the United States has long been engaged in provoking neutrals against Germany. 'RESIDENT'S OPENING ADDRESS. POSITION REVIEWED. / Washington, March 5. President Wilson, in his inaugural address, said the blood of all the nations now fighting had made Americans a composite and cosmopolitan people, no longer provincial, but affected as to theii minds, industries, commerce and sowai action by the great world currents. , America, however, demanded nothing foi herself that she was unwilling to give other nations. She had been deeply wronged upon the seas, but had refrained from wronging or injuring ia return. She was now compelled to stand firm in armed neutrality, but might be drawn on by circumstances to more active assertion of her rights. America in peace or war stood for the principle that all nations were equally interested in the world's peace ai.a in the political stability of free peoples, ■ and equally responsible for their maintenance; that an essential principle of peace was the actual equality of nations -in all matters of rights or privileges; that peace coi''" not rest upon a balance of armed po\ that Governments not drawing their „ .vers from the just consent of the governed ought not to be Supported by the common thought of the family of nations; that the seas ought to be equally free and safe for the use of all peoples under rules set up i>y common agreement and consent, and, as far as practicable, equally accessible to all; that national armament should be limited to the necessities of national order and domestic safety; that one State ought, to sternly discourage anything likely to encourage revolution in % other States. Referring to the prospect of war, President Wilson said: "We may be even drawn by circumstances, not by our own purpose or desire, to a more active assertion of our rights as wc see them and a more immediate association iwtb. the great struggle itself. "Any auch step, however, will be with an unselfish purpose, cot with any view to conquest or national aggrandisement." A TIMELY ARREST. New York, March 5. At lUbokM- Fritz Kolb was arrested in » bot*l firts room was filled with bombs aad <uplfl»lvea. The police assert that eoafewed to attempts on Mr.