The contraband Proclamation will of course cause American shippers to
hesitate to send cotton destined for Germany, because in future both ship and cargo will be liable to con- fiscation. We cannot see, from this point of view, that our new policy is more advantageous to the United States, yet such is the affection of the American Government for exact precedents that the new contraband Proclamation seems to them more satisfactory than the unprecedented Order in Council with its avoidance of what Mr. Asquith called "juridical niceties." Very likely the United States Govern- ment will protest, nevertheless, in view of our original state- ment that cotton would not be declared contraband. But the protest will probably be not much more than formal, for the alarm of the American cotton-planters is evidently dying away. Official American statistics of cotton exports have shown that the planters have compensated themselves for the loss of the German market. Finally, the revelations of German intrigues in American commerce have greatly increased the resentment against Germany, and this feeling, inevitably transferred to the side of the Allies in the shape of sympathy, has eased the situation.
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