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WHO ARE THE HUNS?

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American "Neutrality." 309<br />

We are, to be sure, aware that the United States sent a<br />

Note of Protest to England on the 28th of December, 1914.<br />

In this they spoke of the<br />

"Growing concern with which they observe the great<br />

number of vessels with American goods destined for neutral<br />

ports, which are seized by England and taken into British<br />

ports."<br />

(In the original edition the author enters more fully into<br />

the question of the American Note.)<br />

The Note very properly points out that to claim that a<br />

•consignment of wares proclaimed as conditional contraband<br />

and destined for a neutral port, may permit of a legal assumption<br />

that the final destination may be that of an enemy, appears<br />

to be in direct contradiction to the principles formerly maintained<br />

as correct by Great Britain, and formulated as follows<br />

by Lord Salisbury during the South African War:<br />

"Food supplies, even though they may have an enemy<br />

destination, can only be considered as contraband of war,<br />

for peace, and on all other -week days supplies England and her allies with<br />

weapons, ammunition and every conceivable variety of contraband of war."<br />

.... "I must admit, that I, as a born American, who dearly loves this<br />

land of freedom, cannot but feel disgust at the lickspittle policy of my native<br />

land, which allows England to punch us on the nose and bat us about the<br />

head, and then licks the hand that strikes us." That this judgment is not too<br />

severe is demonstrated, apart from the question of the export of provisions,<br />

by the complete throttling of the American copper, wool and rubber trade.<br />

In this case the government has permitted the plain violation of Section 73<br />

of the statute of the 12th of February, 1913, which establishes that every<br />

kind of combination or trust which attempts to restrict the legal trade of<br />

free competition in the imports from abroad to the United States of America<br />

is illegal and invalid. In the matter of the export of cotton, there has also been<br />

great trickery, in spite of all promises.<br />

Many ships with American goods aboard were taken by the English into<br />

the tiny harbor of Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands, to be searched. The United<br />

States Government sought permission to send a Consular officer to Kirkwall,<br />

which England flatly refused to allow. On the other hand the American agents<br />

of neutral shipping firms objected to take freights, unless the bill of lading<br />

was accompanied by a guarantee from the British ambassador, Sir Cecil Spring-<br />

Rice, in which all British officials were charged to let the vessel pass unmolested.<br />

"The British ambassador has, so to speak, erected the Great Wall<br />

of China about the United States, and plays the part of a Dictator of American<br />

commerce," is the justifiable exclamation of the German-American Chamber<br />

of Commerce in New York and many othor institutions.

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