Cabinet itself—­it should find itself compelled to impose restrictions on neutral traffic by sea in certain areas, it will not need so much to point to the behaviour of its opponents in this respect, which appears by no means an example to be followed, but rather to the fact that Austria-Hungary, through the persistence and hatred of its enemies, who are determined upon its destruction, is brought to a state of self-defence in so desperate extreme as is unsurpassed in the history of the world.  The Austrian Government is encouraged by the knowledge that the struggle now being carried on by Austria-Hungary tends not only toward the preservation of its own vital interests, but also towards the realisation of the idea of equal rights for all states; and in this last and hardest phase of the war, which unfortunately calls for sacrifices on the part of friends as well, it regards it as of supreme importance to confirm in word and deed the fact that it is guided equally by the laws of humanity and by the dictates of respect for the dignity and interests of neutral peoples.

3

=Speech by Dr. Helfferich, Secretary of State, on the Submarine Warfare=

The Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of May 1, 1917, gives the following speech by Dr. Helfferich, Secretary of State, on the economic effects of the submarine warfare delivered in the principal committee of the Reichstag on April 28.  The speech is here given verbatim, with the exception of portions containing confidential statements: 

“In the sitting of yesterday a member rightly pointed out that the technical and economic results of the submarine warfare have been estimated with caution.  In technical respects the caution observed in estimating the results is plain; the sinkings have, during the first month, exceeded by nearly a quarter, in the second by nearly half, the estimated 600,000 tons, and for the present month also we may fairly cherish the best expectations.  The technical success guarantees the economic success with almost mathematical exactitude.  True, the economic results cannot be so easily expressed numerically and set down in a few big figures as the technical result in the amount of tonnage sunk.  The economic effects of the submarine warfare are expressed in many different spheres covering a wide area, where the enemy seeks to render visibility still more difficult by resorting, so to speak, to statistical smoke-screens.

“The English statistics to-day are most interesting, one might almost say, in what they wisely refrain from mentioning.  The Secretary of State for the Navy pointed out yesterday how rapidly the pride of the British public had faded.  The English are now suppressing our reports on the successes of our submarines and our statements as to submarine losses; they dare not make public the amount of tonnage sunk, but mystify the public with shipping statistics which have given rise to general annoyance in the English