Secretary Lansing, in a comment on this reply, said the German note was devoted to matters which the American Government could not discuss with the German Government. He took the ground, as the American reply indicated, that the only "questions of right" which could be discussed with the German Government were those arising out of German or American action exclusively, not out of those questions which were the subject of diplomatic exchanges between the United States and any other country. "So long as she (Germany) lives up to this altered policy," he explained, "we can have no reason to quarrel with her on that score, though the losses resulting from the violation of American rights by German submarine commanders operating under the former policy will have to be settled. "While our differences with Great Britain cannot form a subject of discussion with Germany, it should be stated that in our dealings with the British Government we are acting, as we are unquestionably bound to act, in view of the explicit treaty engagements with that Government. We have treaty obligations as to the manner in which matters in dispute between the two Governments are to be handled. We offered to assume mutually similar obligations with Germany, but the offer was declined." Mr. Lansing's comment appeared to be more enlightening to German opinion than the official communication. But while the German was frankly puzzled by the American contention--holding that there was an intimate connection between England's "illegal blockade policy" and the submarine war--and wondered naively whether or not he was the simple victim of an American confidence game, or strongly suspected that he had been hoodwinked by President Wilson into parting with the effective submarine weapon, with no guarantee of getting any action against England in return, hard German common sense discerned through these doubts, and made the most of the one all-important fact it could comprehend--that the dreaded break had been avoided. With the air thus cleared, the usual anticlimax came to the situation--the tumbling down of Germany's elaborate and grandiose defense of her misdeeds--by a tardy confession of error, which swept everything she had previously said into the discard. On May 8, 1916, the same day on which the American note had been dispatched, Germany sent a further communication acknowledging that, as result of further investigation, her previous contention "that the damage of the _Sussex_ was to be traced back to a cause other than the attack of a German submarine cannot be maintained." It now seems that the _Sussex_ had been mistaken by the submarine commander for a British transport. Nothing could be more complete than Germany's belated resort to an amende honorable after the United States had proved her guilt: