THE UNITED STATES AND GERMANY.
filHE resignation of Mr. Bryan, the powerful American J. Secretary of State, which took the United States by surprise, must of course affect considerably the methods by which the American Cabinet will conduct their negotia- tions with Germany. Mr. Bryan, as he has in effect told his countrymen, was the brake, and the brake has removed itself. We do not in the least mean by this that President Wilson desires to go to war, but simply that he sees with a clear vision what he believes to be right from the stand- point of international law, and that if by insisting on what is right he causes Germany to make war he will reluctantly accept the consequences. Mr. Bryan, on the other hand, was unwilling to accept any consequences— to put his name to anything which might conceivably cause war between the United States and Germany. Mr. Wilson, we are sure, is no less faithful to his love of pacific principles than he has always been. But he takes a long and wide view of the future of the world as it must be if German morals are allowed to prevail, and he has evidently come to the conclusion that to admit the possibility of their prevailing is merely to consent in advance to the disruption of that whole system of international legality upon which the ideals of the pacificist are constructed. He sees that if be consents to the German policy the whole world of his vision crumbles away beneath his feet. Nothing would be left. Men might continue to repeat pacific formulae, but these would have become mere sound, signifying nothing. No international confidence, no legal sanctions, nothing of the former value of pledgee on which even the results of arbitration depend, would remain. Mr. Wilson, therefore, has the penetration and cool courage of a man who seems temporarily to lose that to which he has always clung in order to make his ultimate grasp firmer. No one who admires Mr. Wilson's foresight can, of course, approve in the same degree of the policy of Mr. Bryan. But one may fairly and justly admire the unwaver. ing sincerity with which Mr. Bryan has clung to his formula for peace. He has willingly sacrificed to it his high position. And though we think Americans as a whole, even in the West, will follow Mr. Wilson and not Mr. Bryan, they will know how to retain their respect for Mr. Bryan. • The difference between Mr. Wilson and Mr. Bryan is, in fine, this : Mr. Wilson thinks the beginning of pacificism is the respect for international law, which is being entirely set at naught by the German submarine war on merchantmen, and Mr. Bryan thinks that you can still accept the word of men who are breaking their word. Nearly all complicated questions in politics can be reduced to a very simple issue, and it is the mark of statesmanship so to reduce them. For Mr. Wilson the issue is merely between international law and submarines ; and he chooses international law. We cannot now doubt, though we have not seen even a forecast of the American Note to Germany as we write, that Mr. Wilson will step out strongly along the path which he has chosen. Otherwise there would be no sense whatever in lolling the services of Mr. Bryan, who, with his popularity and his devoted following in the West, was a great strength to Mr. Wilson's Administration. Some Americans think—we derive our information from summaries of American leading articles published in English newspapers—that Germany may take Mr. Bryan's resignation as a sign of weakening in America. She may conclude that she has now to deal only with a shaken and disunited Cabinet. If Germany acts on that assumption, she will add to her many misunderstandings of other countries the greatest misunderstanding of which she has yet been guilty. Mr. Wilson has already rallied his countrymen, and he will probably find that the new Note has the support of a resolute and enthusiastic nation. Even if his policy did not commend itself so strongly as it does to the logic and reason of the American people, they would still probably muster in their masses behind him. They are a people who like action; a spirited people who thrill at a strong, clear call. So that from no point of view can we have any doubt as to what the reception of Mr. Wilson's Note in the country of its origin is likely to be.
Compared with Mr. Wilson's intention to avoid war if he possibly can, but at all costs to insist on the legally guaranteed right of every non-combatant to travel in safety in an unarmed ship (even in an unarmed ship belonging to a belligerent country), Mr. Bryan's plan of arbitration appears to most Americans quite Impractical. Mr. Bryan would have liked an investigation by an International Commission, and he would have warned Americans against travelling in belligerent vessels or with cargoes of ammu- nition. For the sake of peace, in fact, he would have consented to the writing off of a considerable and important part of existing international law. He would have agreed, in effect, to the disappearance of the written agreements that the lives of non-combatants should in all cases be secure, even though the ships from which they were taken should be forfeit, or, in special circumstances, should be sunk. Then as to Mr. Bryan's proposal that the United States should agree to arbitration with Germany on the submarine question, again the majority of Americans cannot see the practicability of it. Mr. Bryan points to the Arbitration Treaties between America and thirty nations. There is no arbitration treaty with Germany, but he suggests that, as Germany accepted the principle of arbitration, there would be no great difficulty in persuading her to accept now the procedure which so many other countries have adopted. It will be remem- bered that these treaties provide that no war should take place until there has been a year of investigation. The average American does not perceive the practicability of investigating for a year while American vessels are being torpedoed and American lives lost. Of course the Germans want nothing more than delay. If the good services of delay seem likely to fail, the Germane can be relied upon to raise some new quibble which will ensure another period of delay. One year is a very moderate estimate of the time the investigation would last. Even now the evidence of facts indicates that the German naval authorities act independently of the German Foreign Office. While the
Foreign Office is assuring America that the torpedoing of American ships was a mistake, the submarine com- manders go on making mistakes which seem to be quite deliberate.
Let us repeat what we have often said before. We do not want to influence the United States on the issue of peace or war. We shall not say a word which might seem like an incitement to her to come in. But if events should bring her in, as may well happen, since even pacific principles after all cannot invariably bring a satisfactory solution to a ruler determined to do what is right, it would be an affectation in us to pretend that the authority which the United States would lend us would not be great. It would be immense. The world would never have seen such a spectacle as the English-speaking races standing for international law as the hope and foundation of the civilization which we mean to make secure as the result of this war.
Previous page
