GERMANY stands convicted of such bestial crime upon land and sea that one can only come to the conclusion her offence results not from passing aberration or the ebriety of war, but indicates an infection deep-seated and chronic. Her recent Imperial Government statistics of crime before the war indicated very surely that some deep, moral distemper was conquering the German character and running like a plague through her spiritual and sociological life.

It has been said that the problem is one for the anthropologist rather than the lawyer; yet even if the Prussian be not a Teuton, but a Tatar, his indifference to every human instinct would still remain inexplicable. For others of the Tatar stock are amenable to the evolution that time brings, and now pursue the business of war under modern conditions that embrace respect for prisoners and wounded, non-combatants, women and children.

Among the numberless instances of murder and piracy on the high seas space permits here but to dwell upon one, which has by no means received the attention it deserves. International problems involved by the destruction of American citizens have tended to focus public opinion on the “Lusitania” and “Essex” murders; but consider again a crime in the Black Sea and the depraved temper it implies.

On the thirtieth day of March, while lying motionless off Cape Fathia, the Russian hospital ship “Portugal” was destroyed in broad daylight by a submarine, despite the fact that she bore all necessary marks demanded by the Geneva Convention and Hague Covenant.

There perished fourteen ladies of the Red Cross; fifty surgeons and physicians; many male and female nurses; many Russian and French sailors. But for the fact that a Russian destroyer was in the vicinity, the fatalities must have been larger. A great hospital equipment was also lost to humanity.

Well might the Russian Government declare this outrage a flagrant infraction of the rights of man and an act of common piracy, while asking the judgment of all civilized countries on such barbarism.

The people that perpetrated and applauded this act denies civilization, and one may fairly argue that the national conscience, not only of her fighting forces, but of those behind them, will soon reach a pitch where disintegration must follow. The evolution of morals alone must break them, for human nature cannot suffer this reaction.

Meantime we wait in vain for the Allies’ Note informing Germany of our intention with respect to her shipping. Did she know that we designed an eye for an eye, a ton for a ton, she might yet hesitate upon a course that promised to deplete her merchant marine after the war in the ratio of her destruction. The point is equally vital to the weak maritime neutrals, who see their merchant fleets dwindle and their protests ignored by a nation that respects nothing on earth but force.

EDEN PHILLPOTTS.