nt therefore resolved to
take no measures of precaution, but to dispatch a Note to Berlin
on February 12th, summarizing the two conflicting points of view,
which remained irreconcilable throughout the whole controversy, on
the subject of the submarine war. Germany, on the one hand, defended
her course of action as a reprisal justified by the British blockade,
which both parties to the discussion agreed to be contrary to the
Law of Nations. The United States, for her part, maintained that
as long as the blockade of Great Britain was not made effective,
neutral shipping had the right to go where it wished unharmed, and
that the German submarines were empowered only to hold up merchant
ships for search purposes, unless these same ships offered resistance
or endeavored to escape.

The chief germ of dissension lay in the fact that the British blockade,
which was defended by its authors as being merely an extension
of the rights of sea warfare to square with the progress of the
modern military machine, was met on America's part only by paper
protests, while our own extension of the same rights by means of
submarine warfare was treated as a _casus belli_. At a later period
of the war the Imperial Government made certain proposals to the
United States, who might, by accepting them, have safeguarded all
their commercial and shipping interests, not to mention the lives
of their citizens, to the fullest possible extent, and yet have
allowed us a free field for our submarine warfare. These proposals
the United States rejected; thus she set herself to combat with all
her strength any continuance of the blockade restrictions through
our submarines, while conniving at the similar restrictions exercised
by England, although these latter infringed far more seriously the
rights of neutral Powers.

The following extract from the American Note of February 12th clearly
presaged the conflict to come:

"This Government has carefully noted the explanatory statement
issued by the Imperial German Government at the same time with
the proclamation of the German Admiralty, and takes this occasion
to remind the Imperial German Government very respectfully that the
Government of the United States is open to none of the criticisms
for unneutral action to which the German Government believe the
governments of certain other neutral nations have laid themselves
open; that the Government of the United States has not consented or
acquiesced in any m