GERMANY'S NEW POLICY AT SEA.
N° questions during the past week have occupied men's minds more than those which have arisen over the torpedoing of the Dutch liners. What object have the Germans in view in this new piece of frightfulness ? Why do they so deliberately and so brutally antagonize a neutral Power whose strict neutrality has been so great a convenience to them in the past and was likely to prove so convenient in the future ? We make no complaint whatever against Holland, but unquestionably Dutch neutrality has enabled Germany to carry on intercourse with America and the rest of the world in ways which have been of no small assistance to her. Why, then, has she committed acts which must be bitterly resented by the Dutch people and Dutch Government, and must create a situation which, provided things go as badly for Germany in the future as they seem likely to go, may prove disastrous 40 her, and conceivably may deprive her of her last opportunity for saving something from the wreck ? We believe that the answer, as such answers generally are, is a very simple one. It is contained in a statement made in Wednesday's Tames in a telegram from its special correspondent at Amsterdam. According to this authority, reports are rife there that two members of the directorate of the Holland- Amerika Line when visiting Hamburg lately on shipping business were informed by Herr Bailin that Germany's policy 1 to prevent all traffic between the United Kingdom and European countries, whether neutral or not. " There is," adds the correspondent, " excellent reason for believing that these reports are well founded." If this is the true explanation, as we believe it is, the facts are easily accounted for. The new German view of the freedom of the seas is to make the sea, or at any rate the sea surrounding Britain, incapable of passage by any ships whatever, neutral or British. Germany has issued, in fact, a new edition of Napoleon's Berlin Decrees. By those Decrees Napoleon sought to destroy all intercourse between Britain and the rest of the world. We were to be brought to our knees by a Non-Intercourse Act on the most huge scale. In the same way the new Berlin Decrees are to make it so dangerous for any one to cross the North Bea or any of the waters which surround these islands that it will be impossible for us to obtain food and munitions. Any neutral Power which desires to trade with us will have to be taught that we are under the Kaiser's ban, and that ruin and disaster must fall upon all ships which attempt to touch at our shores. That is a very picturesque policy, but it is one which will turn out as futile, and probably as injurious to its propounders, as did that of Napoleon. It may be remembered that the ultimate tesult of Napoleon's great attempt to boycott Britain was total failure, largely due to the rousing of universal hatred of his Empire and its intolerable tyranny. It was because his ally, the Emperor Alexander, refused to carry out the policy of boycott that Napoleon engaged in the attempt to conquer Russia which ended in the retreat from Moscow. But besides making Russia his implacable foe the Berlin Decrees raised up enemies in every part of the world, and at the same time were unsuccessful in their main object of strangling British oversee trade. That will be the result of the new policy. It will not injure ns to any material extent. Our national insurance policy prevents any panic amongst our shippers, and the gallantry of the sailors of our mercantile marine assures us that there will be no refusal on their part to go to sea through fear of being sunk at sight. There will not be a single British ship withdrawn from trade. Neutral ships may no doubt be to some extent terrorized ; but if that be so, it is not we who will suffer the inconvenience, but the neutrals, and to a large extent Germany herself. Indeed, the policy of sinking everything at sea will only have the effect of mating the task of our Blockade Minister very much easier than before. Germany by her action will automatically blockade all the neutral ports, and so blockade herself in her last refuge. The injury to the neutrals must be very great. Our blockade, unfor- tunately, has been bound to cause them great inconvenience ; but at any rate their shipping has not been destroyed as well as their trade restricted. Under the new German dis- pensatiom they will suffer a double loss. The Germans, of course, must be able to see this as well as we can. In all probability, however, they argue that the hostility of neutrals which they will provoke will not matter to them. The neutrals, they calculate, will not be likely to risk the dangers, of war, for the most important of them—Holland • and Den- mark—are Within reach of the German military arm, and their active hostility may be discounted. Holland and. Denmark, even if they .declared war, could do nothing but expose themselves to deadly blows from the Imperial sword: Germany therefore loses nothing by making them her enemies.
There is another advantage that the logical Germans believe they will get by their sea boycott. They hope by their policy of naval frightfulness to reduce materially the shipping of the world, and therefore to cripple the power and vitality of Britain. They see that already we are suffering considerable inconvenience owing to shortage of shipping, and they are inflamed by the idea that if they can send to the bottom ten or even twenty per cent. of the present ships afloat they may greatly injure our trade, or even jeopardize our supply of food and necessaries. Portugal and Italy have seized and will make use ef the interned German vessels. The Germans are going to discount this indirect aid to England by the policy of sinking as many neutral ships as possible in the North Sea. Not only will this give a new source of strength to Germany, but it will tend when the war is over to neutralize her disadvantage. German traders are looking to the position when the war ends. They see how terribly handicapped Germany will ba if she has very few vessels with which to restart her oversee trade. They realize that it is out of her power to prevent this handicap, but they think she may do something to start on an equality if she has materially reduced the total tonnage of the world. In other words, they hope to drag down the mercantile marine of other countries to Germany's low level, and so arrange matters that the Powers shall start the new race for oversee trade at " scratch." All this, we admit, sounds fantastic, but that, as our experience of the last eighteen months shows, is not a ground for disbelieving that the Germans entertain it. It is in the nature of a counterpart to what we have seen happen on land. " When in doubt kill somebody or destroy something, and on the biggest possible scale." That appears to be a German rule of conduct.
What is likely to be the effect on the neutrals, provided that we have given the true reason for German action ? At first, no doubt, bewilderment and inactivity will be the result of the sea boycott. Soon, however, the neutrals will realize that, though Germany may threaten, talk big, and do a certain amount of damage, the power of the submarine is restricted, and their ships, though perhaps in somewhat reduced numbers, will begin once more to navigate the North Sea and touch at English ports. Very possibly, too, the neutral Governments will have recourse to convoys, and will send out their ships of war as escorts for their merchant vessels. Neutral ships of war, though not of course in any way capable of dealing with German battleships, will be sufficiently powerful to ward off the attacks of submarines, provided the Germans are unwilling to commit open acts of war by sinking the naval vessels of neutrals. Probably even Germany would shrink from saying in effect to Holland : " If you dare to send destroyers to protect your vessels while in the war zone, we shall regard that protection as a hostile act to ourselves and shall sink your ships of war at sight." Meanwhile it is worth while to know how very little effect Germany's policy of making it impossible for ships to navigate the seas that surround us has had. The new policy began on March 1st, but instead of immense numbers of British vessels being sunk, our losses have been comparatively small, certainly not enough to jeopardize our commerce any more than our naval position. How many German submarines of the new or older type have been sunk since March 1st we haVe not been told, and very properly shall not be told till the war is over ; but we venture to say that if a balance-sheet could be produced and our mercantile losses set against the naval losses of Germany—Germany, having no trading ships at sea, of course has nothing else but naval losses—the account would not prove unsatisfactory from our point of view. Germany's new policy has been proved, and will continue to prove, a blunder as well as a brutality.
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