ate struggle the most strenuous methods were to be used. The sea power of Britain had been carefully nourished through many years. Now, in the time of her supreme need, she was likely to make it serve her to the limit of its capacity. It was sea power that enabled her to extend the doctrines of contraband and continuous voyage beyond previously accepted limits, and it was sea power that enabled her to expand the doctrine of blockade by establishing what she called a "cordon blockade." Her defense for this step, however, was not in logic but in the ancient doctrine of retaliation.

February 4, 1915, Germany established a "war zone" about the British Isles in which she would sink all enemy ships, "even if it may not be possible always to save their crews and passengers." She declared that neutral ships would be "exposed to danger" in this area, partly because Great Britain had ordered her merchant ships to hoist neutral flags in moments of grave peril and partly because of the "hazards of naval warfare." The British government denied that its ships had been ordered to use neutral flags. The only color of truth in the charge was the use of the American flag by two Cunarders in British waters to escape submarines when those instruments of destruction first began to strike at their prey.

The reply to this decree was the blockade of German ports announced to the American government March 13, 1915. Since the Germans had struck at the food supply of the British Isles by establishing the war zone, the British in retaliation for this and other acts would deprive Germany of foreign commodities by establishing a blockade. It is true the British blockade was not regular in form. Nor was it according to international law for Germany to create the war zone. The British did not attempt to justify their blockade by international law. It was their avowed purpose to cut off all trade with Germany, going in or coming out, by means of a cordon of ships across seas re

mote from the German ports. The order-in-council in which their will was proclaimed, in the spirit of the famous order-incouncil of November 1, 1807, required all ships bound to German ports to unload in a British port unless given a passport to proceed, and all ships leaving German ports were to enter British ports and unload there. The order also declared neutral ports blockaded so far as contraband goods were concerned that were believed bound for Germany. It was a very drastic order and left neutral nations no hope of sending anything to Germany that could be construed as contraband of war. One important article only was not included. Although public opinion in Great Britain demanded that raw cotton should not be admitted to Germany by any avenue whatever, the government, evidently unwilling to press American opinion to an extreme limit, excepted it from the excluded articles. It was evident that much cotton was reaching Germany through neutral territory; and so great was the outcry in Great Britain that on August 20 the government was forced to make raw cotton absolute contraband.

In the long and at times acrid correspondence that now followed between London and Washington the United States conceded the regularity of the new type of blockade set up by Great Britain, that is, the blockade by cordon of ships on the high seas, provided the cordon was effective. But they stoutly resisted the contention that a blockade could be established against goods passing through neutral territory. They stood on the old principle of international law that neutral ships carrying neutral goods between neutral ports cannot be stopped. The British replied that they themselves stood on the old principle that goods carried on a neutral ship for use in the armed struggle of an opposing belligerent were liable to seizure. Thus the British gave an old principle of international law a new and liberal interpretation, while the Americans stood by the

letter of the old law. In the existing struggle each belligerent was stretching international law as far as he dared, and a neutral that held for old principles was always facing the question: "What are you going to do about it?" To dispute the contention of the British beyond insisting on our rights would have made us participants in the war, and on the side of Germany, a thing which, in view of events to be mentioned later, was unthinkable.

The only course left us, short of acquiescence in Britain's position, which would have been throwing away rights plainly guaranteed by international law, was to make firm protest and await the day when we could bring the controversy before a competent diplomatic court. Secretary Lansing's note of October 21, 1915, written in the later stages of a protracted correspondence, had this kind of procedure in mind. It pronounced the British blockade, as carried out, "ineffective, illegal, and indefensive" and pledged the United States to continue to defend the "integrity of neutral rights which have received the sanction of the civilized world."

While the president directed this correspondence he was annoyed by criticisms of several kinds. American merchants, manufacturers, and shippers were impatient at the delays and interruptions of business through British action and complained because the government did not obtain relief. Persons whose ships had been seized in England complained because he did not hurry the British prize courts to some kind of action. ProGermans in our own country openly jeered at the administration alleging that it was under British influence. At the same time Count von Bernstorff, German ambassador, persistently called attention to the blockade, which we admitted was illegal. He was not always polite in his remarks to the president as when he closed a note of February 13, 1915, by expressing the hope

"that the American Government will stand on its rights in this matter." However, the Lusitania incident, occurring early in May, put the ambassador on the defensive, and thereafter he had little opportunity to try to bully the president into a war against the Entente allies.

The reader will get an idea of the nature of the controversy with Great Britain by examining the so-called "Packers' Cases," which were long before the public. By July 12, 1915, thirtysix ships loaded with American owned meat valued at $14,000,000, had been seized under the British order-in-council of March 11 and were awaiting disposal by the prize courts. September 16 a decision was given in regard to three of the ships in which most of the cargoes were declared contraband or conditional contraband, destined for Germany through Copenhagen. It was proved that the cargoes were thirteen times as great as similar cargoes previously imported in the same time into Holland. It was also shown that in the cargoes were hundreds of thousands of cases of tinned meat. As Denmark does not import meat in tins in ordinary times and as tinned meats of the kinds here found are generally used in the armies and navies of to-day, it was a fair inference that the cargo was seized when on its way to the German armed forces. To the court and the British people it was clear that such commodities could be seized under the general theory of contraband.

Secretary Lansing's reply took up the argument from exports as well as the definition of legal principles. It was not fair, he said, to pay too much attention to the increased volume of exports as expressed in returns in money, partly because of the sharp rise in prices and partly because the war, by depriving Denmark of her other sources of supply, threw her into dependence upon the United States and an increased volume of exports to that country was to be expected. He did not under

take to show, as he might have shown with fair approximateness by figures, in how much each of these countervailing factors entered into the problem.

The secretary was more at home in dealing with legal arguments and he made out a strong case on that score. Nothing was clearer, he said, than the principle that a neutral nation could not be blockaded under international law, and this principle was violated in the British practice. Furthermore, it was not correct to say that the German ports were effectively blockaded, since ships left them continually for journeys across the Baltic Sea. As a blockade was not to be respected unless it was effective, this point was well taken. The secretary maintained his argument with ability. He never gave up his attempt to hold Great Britain to a stricter interpretation of international law, and if our government had not been drawn into the war eventually a long negotiation for adjustment would probably have followed the end of the war.

Although the British government was sincere in saying that it regretted to restrict neutral trade and that it would not make the burden heavier than necessary, it did not hesitate to go to extreme lengths in devising means of cutting off trade with Germany. December 23, 1915, it extended the provisions of its "Trading-with-Enemy Act" to neutrals whom the king might desire included. Under this law was prepared what was known as "the blacklist," a list of firms and shipping companies, many of them domiciled in the United States, with whom British subjects were forbidden to trade. The proceedings were especially hard on the listed ship owners; who were thus denied the right to buy bunker coal from British firms, and as such firms controlled the coal supply in a great many ports, it became difficult for the owners to carry on business.

There were in the United States many business men of such strong German leaning that for all effective purposes they were