In the meantime, whatever arrangement may happily be made between the parties to the war, and whatever may in the opinion of the Imperial German Government have been the provocation or the circumstantial justification for the past acts of its commanders at sea, the Government of the United States confidently looks to see the justice and humanity of the Government of Germany vindicated in all cases where Americans have been wronged or their rights as neutrals invaded. The Government of the United States therefore very earnestly and very solemnly renews the representations of its note transmitted to the Imperial German Government on the 15th of May, and relies in these representations upon the principles of humanity, the universally recognized understandings of international law, and the ancient friendship of the German Nation. The Government of the United States cannot admit that the proclamation of a war zone from which neutral ships have been warned to keep away may be made to operate as in any degree an abbreviation of the rights either of American shipmasters or of American citizens bound on lawful errands as passengers on merchant ships of belligerent nationality. It does not understand the Imperial German Government to question those rights. It understands it, also, to accept as established beyond question the principle that the lives of non combatants cannot lawfully or rightfully be put in jeopardy by the capture or destruction of an unresisting merchantman, and to recognize the obligation to take sufficient precaution to ascertain whether a suspected merchantman is in fact of belligerent nationality or is in fact carrying contraband of war under a neutral flag. The Government of the United States therefore deems it reasonable to expect that the Imperial German Government will adopt the measures necessary to put these principles into practice in respect of the safeguarding of American lives and American ships, and asks for assurances that this will be done. ROBERT LANSING, Secretary of State ad Interim. THE LUSITANIA'S "GUNS" _In a Washington dispatch of June 2, 1915, to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES, _the following report appeared:_ In his conversation with President Wilson today the German Ambassador said that he had obtained evidence through means of affidavits that the Lusitania was an armed vessel, as asserted by the German Government. The affidavits to which Count von Bernstorff referred have been placed in possession of the State Department, which has turned them over to the Department of Justice for an investigation as to the statements sworn to and the character of the individuals making them. [Illustration: HIS EXCELLENCY COUNT JOHANN VON BERNSTORFF German Ambassador to the United States] One of the affidavits is made by Gustav Stahl of 20 Leroy Street, New York City. He says: