10 FEBRUARY 1917, Page 1

Britain (so runs the argument) has compelled Germany to this

course by using her naval power to starve Germany. " The British lust of power has increased the sufferings of the world without regard to any law of humanity." Therefore the German Govern. nient " would not be able to answer before its own conscience, before the German people, and before history if it left any means whatever untried to hasten the end of the war." The death zones are defined in the Note—very large zones round Britain, France, and Italy and in the Eastern Mediterranean—and within these every floating thing is to be sunk. Hospital ships, passenger vessels, and trading vessels, flying no matter what flag—everything is to go down, so far as the Germans can contrive it, without warning or attempt at rescue. As though to leave nothing whatever undone that is properly ghoulish, the German submarines have sunk another vessel carrying food for the hungry Belgians. The vessel bore