[To THE EDITOR OF THE ",SPECTATOR."]
see from the papers that the Government are still shilly-shallying about the matter of cotton being declared contraband. This has always appeared to me so important that I wonder you have not been more insistent on the point in your columns. As long ago as last October I used to say that the declaration might be made any day, just as it was made by the Japanese in the RussO-Japanese War. For it seemed to me then that in a country producing seventy-eight per cent, of her own food the cutting off of her raw materials might prove more detrimental than any attempt to starve her out. But when it is known that cotton is so essential to the manufacture of high explosives, our supineness appears incredible, if not criminal. Perhaps too much attention was concentrated on copper supplies; but, while a German sub- stitute for copper is spoken of, none is hinted at in the case of cotton. Presumably we have been too careful of American susceptibilities. But, as Mr. Roosevelt suggests in his speech, to-day reported, that America should cease to trade with Germany, surely it is time for us to go at least as far.—I am,
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