_A London cable dispatch of June 15 to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES _said:_
At the opening of the Court of Inquiry today into the torpedoing of
the steamship Lusitania on May 7, two outstanding points were vividly
impressed. One was that the Cunarder was unarmed. The other was that
the ship was proceeding at reduced speed, eighteen knots an hour, only
nineteen of her twenty-five boilers being used, the result of her
effort to save in coal and labor.
Sir Edward Carson, the Attorney General, in outlining the evidence in
the hands of the Crown, adverted impressively to President Wilson's
note to Germany on the sinking of the Lusitania in which the President
informed the German Government that it was wrong in assuming that the
Lusitania was equipped with masked guns and manned by trained gunners.
"We have ample evidence to disprove the German lie that the Lusitania
was armed," said the Attorney General. "Aside from the word of
witnesses we have that of President Wilson in his recent note to
Germany, based upon investigation made by officials under him. The
sinking of the Lusitania was murder."
Sir Edward lifted a newspaper clipping of the President's note from
the table and slowly read the passage disposing of the German
allegation that the Lusitania was an armed auxiliary.
Captain W.T. Turner, who seemed slightly grayer than before the
Lusitania was torpedoed, in that way alone showing the strain under
which he has been since his ship was sunk under him, gave evidence
that there was not one gun on the Lusitania's deck, and declared that
the German assertion that the steamer was armed was a "sheer lie."
[Illustration: CAPTAIN WILLIAM T. TURNER, R.N.R.