WHO ARE THE HUNS?

384 Exchange of German-American Notes.
placed at a disadvantage by it—England which meanly and
sneeringly rejected all proposals of mediation made by the
United States.
England, by reason of her mode of conducting her mercantile
war and by reason of her proclaiming the North Sea
as a zone of war, is alone responsible for all the consequences
that have ensued. Germany, as we have seen in the foregoing,
has expressed her willingness to give up this method of warfare
if England would consent to give up her illegal "paper
blockade" and contraband campaign. Here again the United
States made application to the wrong party with their proffers of
mediation. So far these have availed nothing and it is not likely
that they will ever avail anything. England can be forced to
budge only by force, by the "old system"—to adopt Mr. Bryan's
phrase, and not by argument—or the "new system." Therefore,
if the government of the United States would procure
for its citizens the right of travelling freely upon the merchant
ships of all nations without endangering their lives, let it first
resort to force in order to prevent England from committing
the most outrageous of all breaches of neutrality-—the misuse
of other nations' flags—or from resorting to the use of auxiliary
cruisers for the transportation of passengers.
Precisely at the psychological moment Dr. Wehberg properly
reminds us in the "Kôlnische Zeitung," of the following
disquisition of the English delegate to the Hague Conference
of 1907.
"The English representative, Lord Reay, a member of
the Privy Council and former President of the Institute of
International Law, declared as follows;—his opinions constitute
an important justification on the part of England for
our entire procedure:
"Ships which render such services, bestow a hostile support
upon the belligerent, which his opponent cannot consider as permissible.
They are through this subject to all the consequences
entailed by the position of a regular belligerent. It is not a
simple mercantile enterprise which is here in question, but an
interference in the operations of war. The ships which undertake
this supply service are unconditionally subject to the
orders of the regular authorities of the belligerents. Their