British merchant seamen have shown more than once that they
mean to boycott Germany and the friends of Germany in retaliation for the murder of many of their comrades by U '- boat commanders. A new instance of their power and their determination was given at Cape Town last Saturday, when the crew of the ' Durham Castle' refused to sail with General Hertzog and other Nationalist delegates who, after opposing the war, are coming to ask the Peace Conference to sever South Africa from the Empire. The seamen in their plain, blunt way said that the Nationalists were working in the enemy's interest and should have no help from them. We observe that some Liberal critics, who have no reproof to urge against miners seeking political ends in their own interests by a strike, are horrified at the action of the sailors, who also seek political but entirely unselfish ends by refusing to work. Yet the principle is the same in both cases. If the miners may wage war against their country by a strike, may not the sailors by a strike wage war against those whom they regard, rightly or wrongly, as their country's enemies ?
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