lliation for that act or as an abatement of the responsibility for its
commission.

Long acquainted as this Government has been with the character of the
Imperial Government, and with the high principles of equity by which
they have in the past been actuated and guided, the Government of the
United States cannot believe that the commanders of the vessels which
committed these acts of lawlessness did so except under a
misapprehension of the orders issued by the Imperial German naval
authorities. It takes it for granted that, at least within the practical
possibilities of every such case, the commanders even of submarines were
expected to do nothing that would involve the lives of noncombatants or
the safety of neutral ships, even at the cost of failing of their object
of capture or destruction. It confidently expects, therefore, that the
Imperial German Government will disavow the acts of which the Government
of the United States complains; that they will make reparation so far as
reparation is possible for injuries which are without measure, and that
they will take immediate steps to prevent the recurrence of anything so
obviously subversive of the principles of warfare for which the Imperial
German Government have in the past so wisely and so firmly contended.

The Government and people of the United States look to the Imperial
German Government for just, prompt, and enlightened action in this vital
matter with the greater confidence, because the United States and
Germany are bound together not only by special ties of friendship, but
also by the explicit stipulations of the Treaty of 1828, between the
United States and the Kingdom of Prussia.

Expressions of regret and offers of reparation in case of the
destruction of neutral ships sunk by mistake, while they may satisfy
international obligations, if no loss of life results, cannot justify or
excuse a practice the natural and necessary effect of which is to
subject neutral nations and neutral persons to new and immeasurable
risks.

The Imperial German Government will not expect the Government of the
United States to omit any word or any act necessary to the performance
of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and
its citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment.

BRYAN.

THE WARNING AND THE CONSEQUENCE--

THE GERMAN WARNING.

[On Saturday, May 1, the day that the Lusitania left New York on her
last voyage, t