File No. 656.119/246
The Minister in the Netherlands ( Garrett) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 23, 9.54 a.m.]
2184. Dutch press summary. Handelsblad:
It is very wonderful and yet it is so; very many in the country will have learned with satisfaction that the Associated robbers of ships have taken over our commercial fleet and that President Wilson as champion of the rights of the peoples had led the way. In this [Page 1427] [the] question was no longer must we lose our mercantile vessels, but only shall we in appearance voluntarily give up the ships which are being taken from us against a doubtful requirement of an association which is not worthy of credit, in whose signatures we have not sufficient confidence, or shall we protest until the end and call it a wrong. Shall we charter upon a promise what we may not and are not willing to charter or shall we decline to give the appearance of good faith to an act of robbery in exchange for promises of doubtful value? The people have in no indistinct terms given to understand what their choice would be: a blunt and pertinent refusal. The Government has acted otherwise. It has thought that the great interests of the provision of food for the country might not be forgotten and it has tried to make the exchange, when giving up, at all events somewhat more advantageous and the bought promise somewhat less ambiguous; the Associated Governments have refused. We had to give our ships upon their conditions or the ships would be stolen from us. Good. With regard to this there is only a reason for rejoicing on the part of the people who did not desire that the ships should be given up on the conditions set by the Governments and who did not approve of it. The “ultimatum”—the Americans themselves considered their proposal thus—as an ultimatum has been refused. It is a pleasure for us that they conceive the answer of the Government as such. The Associated Governments are now perfectly free according as they will to do what they like as to sending grain or not.
The same paper says that the seizure of the Dutch ships announced today by newspaper bulletins aroused indignation and anger of the people which appears to prove that in spite of all that had gone before [it] was nevertheless unexpected. In parliamentary circles the impression was also very great. The paper learns that one of the leading members of the Chamber was going about with the idea of questioning the Government whether it would not now recall the Dutch Minister in Washington and give the American Minister here his passports. The matter will be discussed in the First Chamber and such a discussion may perhaps give much light.
Last evening some Delft students called at the American Legation about 9 o’clock and asked to see the Minister. They were informed that the Minister was not at home. Upon this they stood before the Legation singing patriotic songs and whistling, jeering, and hissing. After some minutes they went on their way singing songs which were not flattering to America and they threatened with scorn the English interned men whom they met. Before the Palace of the Queen they stopped and with uncovered heads sang patriotic songs. They went further on their way through the town singing. …
Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant considers that the solution of the difference is the best that could be had under the circumstances. Against organized [un] righteousness relying upon might a small [Page 1428] country like this, when it has practically to face half the world, cannot fight. Right at end of negotiations Associated Governments chose to come forward with requirements that ships should sail in danger zone. There then remained only one way with honor; namely, to refuse, by which the Associated Governments would then be compelled to play an open game and exhibit the absolutely arbitrary character of their crime and by which the full responsibility for the robbery would rest upon them and them alone. The Dutch proposal has now been taken as refusal. Apparently it was a question with the Associated Governments of all or nothing, they intending to procure everything for themselves. That they have persisted in their violence to the end has in the meantime proved to be great advantage to Holland, however, paradoxical as this may sound. Not only have the Associated Governments now taken away from themselves the last appearance of right with which they might have decorated their tyranny if they had entered into the Dutch proposal in taking possession of the Dutch commercial fleet, they have now pilloried themselves openly as militarists whose need knows no moral or legal prohibition. It is also now avoided that [Holland] is herself an accessory to an action that cannot bear the light of day. The paper terminates by saying that it has no inclination to qualify the action of the American Government which has not [now?] laid its hands upon another’s goods. This will remain a blot upon the history of the United States which will not be able to be wiped out in decade.