efforts to penetrate the conscience of the Ger man Government had up to this time gone unrewarded. Referring to the situation at the close of July, The Times said:

The responsibilities of an American President in such an emergency as this are very great. We do not

know when they have been discharged with more skill or dignity or self-restraint than by Mr. Wilson. His diplomacy has precisely interpreted the national wish to avoid a conflict and the national resolution not to shirk it if Germany forces it on. That is why the President has carried with him during the past few anxious months the great mass of American opinion. It is with him now when the gravity of the situation can

no longer be concealed. We are confident it will stay with him in whatever further decisions or action, how. ever serious, that German barbarities on the high seas may compel him to take. He has placed the responsi bility for all future developments squarely upon the shoulders of Germany. Americans will await the upshot with a clear conscience and a united front.

It was not to be expected that President Wilson, who had shown such miraculous patience and self-command in dealing with the perplexing relations of the United States with Germany, would be likely to act hastily. It must be admitted that as outrage succeeded outrage, and insults, in the way of contemptuous Notes, succeeded insults, Englishmen were somewhat amazed at American patience, and surprised that no hasty word escaped the President's lips or fell from his pen. It was

said of Mr. Wilson that he was himself so reasonable and impartial that he wanted to make all the people of the United States equally open-minded and patient.* When at last it dawned upon the German Government that even President Wilson's patience was exhausted, and that Uncle Sam (see cartoon from Punch, page 277), tired of letter-writing, possibly preparing for action, Count Bernstorff was instructed to promise the Washington Government that no more passenger ships would be torpedoed by German submarines without warning unless they tried to escape when summoned to stop, or offered resistance. Count Bernstorff's promise, however, proved but a "scrap of paper," for on August 19 the White Star liner Arabic was torpedoed without warning and sunk by a German submarine. There were twenty-six Americans on board, and some of them lost their lives. This brought about another " crisis" in America, and the Press was almost unanimous in proclaiming

* "The Neutrality of the United States in Relation to the British and German Empires." by Professor Shield Nicholson.

that Germany's action, if the Arabic gave no provocation, was "deliberately unfriendly," and that more words were useless. Of course, Count Bernstorff played for delay, and after it had been granted a story was telegraphed from Berlin that the submarine commander who sank the Arabic declared the liner turned towards him; he naturally supposed he was going to be rammed, so fired a torpedo. This story, arrayed in official attire, was subsequently submitted by the German Ambassador, with a further insulting statement that as the Arabic had been sunk in self-defence, the German Government declined to admit liability for Americans killed. Count Bernstorff was confronted by Secretary Lansing with affidavits made by American survivors of the Arabic, showing that the ship did not attempt to ram the submarine, and that therefore its commander was not acting in self-defence. This the Count declared made a further explanation necessary. In the case of the Allan liner Hesperian, which was torpedoed and sunk September 6, 1915, with loss of life, the Germans claimed that the vessel was sunk by a mine and not a submarine. Of Bernstorff's promise the New York Herald said:

Apparently the German Ambassador meant not one word of the written memorandum, and the conclusion is irresistible that Germany has been continually trifling with the United States.

Of the Hesperian assassins the same journal remarked:

In attacking the Hesperian the German submarine commander was absolutely ruthless. He could not tell whether he was attacking a liner or a cargo boat. The boat might just as well have been the St. Paul or the Philadelphia of the American Line.

The President demanded a copy of the orders issued to submarine commanders as a proof of good faith. This request the German Government showed no desire to grant.

T

HE announcement on Friday, July 24, of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia coincided to a day with one of the most dramatic moments of the Parliamentary Session of 1914. The Irish Question, that malignant problem which for a generation past had, more than any other influence, tended to corrupt political life, was reaching its climax. In order to realize the situation with which the gathering of the coming storm found the Parliament and people of England preoccupied it is necessary to recall briefly the phases of the Home Rule controversy immediately preceding the outbreak of war.

In spite of a wholly unprecedented passage in the King's Speech at the opening of the Session, in which His Majesty had expressed his most earnest wish that the goodwill and cooperation of men of all parties and creeds might heal dissension and lay the foundations of a lasting settlement, the future position of Ulster had once more proved the apparently insuperable obstacle to agreement. Violent altercations in the House of Commons, the incendiary attitude adopted by Mr. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, in a speech at Bradford on March 4, the "precautionary movements of troops and warships, which convinced the Ulster Unionists that a deliberate Vol. V.--Part 60.

campaign to overawe them had been set on foot, the alarming culmination of the crisis in the resignation of the Brigadier-General and 57 officers of the Cavalry at the Curragh on March 20-all these deplorable incidents had raised public excitement to a pitch which is almost inconceivable to-day. No one who recalls the black week-end of the Curragh crisis will forget the common feeling that the whole foundations of our society were rocking; and the general sense of bewilderment threatened to turn into an appalling national schism when certain Radicals and Nationalists thought fit to raise the cry of the Army against the People." So far had party passion obliterated all sense of decency that the Army, which was SO soon to cover itself with imperishable glory, was represented as threatening the authority of Parliament by the very men whose blind ambitions had long since reduced that authority to a mere figure of speech. The situation became momentarily calmer with the judicious assumption by the Prime Minister on March 30 of the post of Secretary of State for War.*

* Colonel Seely, Secretary of State for War, together with Sir John French, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and Sir Spencer Ewart, Adjutant-General of the Forces, had resigned in the midst of the chaos.

A month later the landing by the Ulster Volunteer Force of a large store of rifles and ammunition caused a profound sensation. The Home Rule Bill passed through its second and third readings (April 6 and May 25) on the understanding that the question of the exclusion of Ulster would be further raised by an Amending Bill. Meanwhile, the recognition by Mr. Redmond of the National Volunteers, which had been formed as a response to the Ulster Volun

teer Force, brought a new and disturbing factor into play. When, at length, on June 23, Lord Crewe introduced the Amending Bill in the House of Lords it was found to contain no more than had been offered by the Prime Minister early in March-the exclusion for six years of such Ulster counties as voted themselves out of the Home Rule scheme. The Lords, in Committee, quickly transformed the measure into one which, permanently excluding the whole of Ulster, could obviously not expect acceptance by the Government. Matters were fast reaching a deadlock when on July 20 The Times startled the political world by announcing that the King had summoned a conference of two representatives of each of the four parties to the controversy, under the chairmanship of the Speaker, to meet at Buckingham Palace. During the days which followed there was a breathless lull in hostilities. His Majesty opened the Conference with a gravely worded speech, in which he spoke of the cry of civil war being on the lips of the most responsible and sober-minded of the . people. The Conference held four meetings. On

July 24 the Speaker briefly reported its failure to the House as follows:-" The possibility of defining an area to be excluded from the Government of Ireland Bill was considered. The Conference, being unable to agree, either in principle or in detail, upon such an area. brought its meetings to a conclusion."

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Such was the pass to which the obtuse blindness," as Mr. Balfour called it, of the Government had brought the country at the moment when the mists of war which had long been hanging on the European horizon condensed into the definite menace of the Austrian Note. The bursting of the storm found England apparently impotent to prevent a domestic tragedy which would shake the British Empire to its foundations. Parliamentary government had become an empty farce. All sense of leadership had been lost in a turmoil of talk; all sense of realities had vanished in the struggle of conflicting party interests. The ship of State had become a raft, drifting no one knew whither amid the wrangling of the crew. No wonder that foreign observers, ignorant of the greater character of the nation, attributed to it as a whole the unworthy qualities of its least representative politicians.

It is impossible yet to determine how far the divisions of parties on the Irish question were а factor in the hope of Germany that England would keep out of the war. It may well be that, seeing the Government under the lash of their Nationalist supporters, sinking daily deeper and deeper into the morass, unconscious of any but their