d we welcome Intervention? My dear sir, is it likely? Supposing
_you_ had been caught entirely unprepared, and had been sticking your
toes in for two years--fighting for time and playing a poor hand
pretty well--and were at last ready to hit back, and hit back, until
you had rendered your opponent incapable of further outrage, and were
in a fair way to fix this war so that it never could happen
again--would you welcome Mediation, or offers of Mediation? I think
not.

"Submarines? We aren't attaching _too_ much importance to submarine
frightfulness. It is true we have lost a number of merchant ships, and
that a number of innocent lives have been sacrificed. But let us put
our hearts in the background for the present and look at the matter
from the economic and military point of view. We have lost, in
twenty-seven months, about one tenth of our original merchant fleet.
Against that you have to set the fact that we have been steadily
building new merchant ships during the same period. The dead loss of
merchandise involved amounts to about one half per cent. of the total
value--ten shillings in every hundred pounds; or fifty cents per
hundred dollars. That won't starve us into submission.

"But the Germans will build more and more submarines? Very probably.
Still, I think we can leave it to the British and French navies to
prevent undue exuberance in that direction. Our sailors have not been
exactly garrulous during this war, but I think we may take it that
they have not been entirely idle. Has it ever occurred to you that
although there are hundreds of Allied warships patrolling the ocean
to-day, you hardly ever hear of one being torpedoed by a submarine?
Passenger ships and freight ships suffer to the extent I have quoted,
but not the warships. Why is that? Don't ask me: ask Jellicoe! But it
rather looks as if the submarine, as an instrument of naval
warfare--as opposed to a baby-killing machine--had rather failed to
deliver the goods.

"The Deutschland? I take off my hat to Captain Koenig: he is a plucky
fellow. The _U 53_? I have no remarks to offer, except to repeat my
previous reference to baby-killing machines. As for the presence of
these two vessels in American waters--in American ports--I won't
presume to offer an opinion. Still, not long ago the U 53 sank six
British or neutral vessels off the American coast, just outside
territorial waters. Fortunately for the passengers, an American
cruiser was in the neigh