ed the American Government
to dispatch on February 22nd an identical Note to Great Britain and
Germany, with the object of arriving at a _modus vivendi_ in the
matter. Their proposal was as follows: Submarines were not to be
employed in any attack on merchant ships of whatever nationality,
save in execution of the rights of detention or search; merchant
ships, for their part, were not to make use of neutral flags, whether
as a _ruse de guerre_ or to avoid identification. Great Britain
would give free passage to provisions and food supplies consigned
to certain agents in Germany, to be named by the United States.
These agents would receive all goods thus imported and dispatch
them to specially licensed distributing firms, who were to be
responsible that they were issued exclusively to the civilian
population.

The above project was concurred in by the German Government in a
Note of February 28th, which added that "The Imperial Government
considered it right that other raw materials, essential to manufacture
for peaceful purposes, and also fodder, should also be imported
without interference."

The British Government, as was to be expected, rejected the American
proposal on somewhat flimsy pretexts, for England's sea supremacy
was at stake in this as in her previous wars. "Britannia rules the
waves" was, and ever must be, the guiding principle of all her
policy, while her world-Empire endures. On this vitally important
question England could not be expected ever to yield an inch of
her own free will.

Thus the American attempt at mediation died a natural death.

Our adoption of submarine warfare was to be regarded, according to
our Note of February 16th, as a measure of reprisal in answer to
the English blockade. From a tactical point of view, this contention
was unfortunate, as it afforded America the opportunity of agreeing
at once, and thus of conceding us a point which benefited us not
at all, but merely gave the United States all the more right to
renew its protests against the submarine war. It would have been
wiser for us to have initiated the submarine campaign simply as a
new weapon of war without reference to the English blockade; still
better, to put it into operation without declaring a blockade of
Great Britain and Ireland, which could never be really effective,
and caused constant friction between ourselves and America. Our
declaration that the territorial waters of Great Britain were to
be regarded a