On Thursday there was nothing to indicate what is likely
to be the upshot of the communications between America and Germany. According to the Washington correspondent of the Morning Post, Count Bernstorff has informed his friends that there will be no break with the United States over the submarine issue, or at any rate no break this time. Germany, he says, will agree to sus- pend submarine operations against passenger vessels pending a discussion with the United States to ascertain in what form and manner submarines can be used that will be in harmony with President Wilson's requirements. But for the fact that the German diplomatists seem capable of anything, we should have described this aP a fairy-tale. Germany is, of course, calculating whether it will pay her better to quarrel with the United States or to remain on friendly terms. We may be quite sure that if she does provoke a rupture it will be on a calculation, and not on impulse or because the American Press is taking a violent anti-German line. No doubt what the Germans would like best of all would be a long- drawn discussion. We do not believe, however, that President Wilson is in the mood for what Milton calls " sweet, reluctant, amorous delay." He has had a year of that kind of thing over the Lusitania.'
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