Austria has replied to the American Note asking her to
define:- her attitude towards the new German policy of sinking at sight: As was natural, nay, inevitable, the Austrians declare their adhesion to the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare as practised by. their allies, and of course by themselves to a minor extent in the Adriatic. The argument employed by them is that the higbos Interests of the neutrals will be served by loyally acquiescing in the German interpretation of the freedom, of the seas. Well might the neutral reply in a paraphrase of the words of the British chief- tain immortalized, if not invented, by Tacitias " They make a solitude on the water and call it the freedom of the seas." In view of .thia fact, we presume that the Austrian Ambassador will have to repack his only just unpacked portmanteaux and follow his Berman colleague back to Europe, under a safeguard which he will have humbly to beg the State Department to obtain for him from the Allies. No doubt Washington will be easygoing and the Allies very properly good-natured, but the temptation to Mr. Lansing to advise the Ambassador to " go to Mexico " must surely Lae almost irresistible.
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