“We desire, however, to take the opportunity of making a fuller statement of the whole position and of our feeling with regard to it.  We recognize with sympathy the desire of the Government of the United States to see the European war conducted in accordance with the previously recognized rules of international law and the dictates of humanity.  It is thus that the British forces have conducted the war, and we are not aware that these forces, either naval or military, can have laid to their charge any improper proceedings, either in the conduct of hostilities or in the treatment of prisoners or wounded.  On the German side it has been very different.

“1.  The treatment of civilian inhabitants in Belgium and the North of France has been made public by the Belgian and French Governments and by those who have had experience of it at first hand.  Modern history affords no precedent for the sufferings that have been inflicted on the defenseless and non-combatant population in the territory that has been in German military occupation.  Even the food of the population was confiscated until in Belgium an international commission, largely influenced by American generosity and conducted under American auspices, came to the relief of the population and secured from the German Government a promise to spare what food was still left in the country, though the Germans still continue to make levies in money upon the defenseless population for the support of the German Army.

“2.  We have from time to time received most terrible accounts of the barbarous treatment to which British officers and soldiers have been exposed after they have been taken prisoner, while being conveyed to German prison camps.  One or two instances have already been given to the United States Government founded upon authentic and first-hand evidence which is beyond doubt.  Some evidence has been received of the hardships to which British prisoners of war are subjected in the prison camps, contrasting, we believe, most unfavorably with the treatment of German prisoners in this country.  We have proposed, with the consent of the United States Government, that a commission of United States officers should be permitted in each country to inspect the treatment of prisoners of war.  The United States Government have been unable to obtain any reply from the German Government to this proposal, and we remain in continuing anxiety and apprehension as to the treatment of British prisoners of war in Germany.

“3.  At the very outset of the war a German mine layer was discovered laying a mine field on the high seas.  Further mine fields have been laid from time to time without warning, and, so far as we know, are still being laid on the high seas, and many neutral as well as British vessels have been sunk by them.