"SEEMS TO BE NEUTRAL: SINK HIM!"
The freedom of the sea means to Germany that the German Navy is to behave at sea as the German Army behaves on land. It means that neither enemy civilians nor neutrals may possess rights against militant Germany; that those who do not resist will be drowned, and those who do will be shot.
Already 244 neutral merchantmen have been sunk in defiance of law and humanity, and the number daily grows. Mankind, with the experience of two years of war behind it, has made up its mind about German culture. It is not, I think, without material for forming a judgment about German freedom.
A. J. Balfour,
First Lord of the Admiralty.
July, 1916.
