That policy was forthwith put into practice. It has now been in active
exhibition for nearly four weeks. Its practical results are not fully
disclosed. The commerce of other neutral nations is suffering
severely, but not, perhaps, very much more severely than it was
already suffering before the 1st of February, when the new policy of
the Imperial Government was put into operation.
We have asked the co-operation of the other neutral Governments to
prevent these depredations, but I fear none of them has thought it
wise to join us in any common course of action. Our own commerce has
suffered, is suffering, rather in apprehension than in fact, rather
because so many of our ships are timidly keeping to their home ports
than because American ships have been sunk.
Two American vessels have been sunk, the Housatonic and the Lyman M. Law.
The case of the Housatonic, which was carrying foodstuffs consigned
to a London firm, was essentially like the case of the Frye, in which,
it will be recalled, the German Government admitted its liability for
damages, and the lives of the crew, as in the case of the Frye, were
safeguarded with reasonable care.