"The United States are really aiding and abetting this rather serious state of affairs. If the United States had not sent their ships, which for some extraordinary reason happened to be on the spot, to save life, the Germans would no doubt have broken the pledge to which their attention had been called. I think we are bound to take notice of a fact which does not appear to be quite within the bounds of neutrality as far as the United States are concerned." Lord Grey, Foreign Secretary, declined to commit the Government to such an attitude. He held that the American-German undertaking was no affair of Great Britain's. It was left for the spectator to be truly prophetic, as the later peace movement showed, in seeking a motive for the _U-53's_ proceedings. It considered that Germany sought to force the United States to propose peace terms, regardless of whether the Entente Allies were agreeable or not: "Thus, with unrestricted submarine warfare as a settled policy, Germany gives America warning of what is likely to happen unless the United States is prepared to declare that the war has reached a point where it is dangerous for neutrals. If the United States is willing to play this role, the Germans will hold their hands from an extra dose of unlimited submarine frightfulness." The _U-53_ had no sooner gone when an exchange of communications between the American and Allied governments regarding the status of foreign submarines in neutral ports became public. The question related to the hospitality accorded the _Deutschland_ in Baltimore and New London; but as it arose in the midst of the hubbub occasioned by the _U-53_, the American view appeared to determine that such craft could call at an American port like any other armed vessel, so long as it did not stay beyond the allotted time. The Allied governments besought neutrals, the United States among them, to forbid belligerent submarine vessels, "whatever the purpose to which they are put," from making use of neutral waters, roadsteads, and ports. Such craft could navigate and remain at sea submerged, could escape control and observation, avoid identification and having their national character established to determine whether they were neutral or belligerent, combatant or noncombatant. The capacity for harm inherent in the nature of such vessels therefore required, in the view of the Allied governments, that they should be excluded from the benefit of rules hitherto recognized by the laws of nations governing the admission of war or merchant vessels to neutral waters and their sojourn in them. Hence if any belligerent submarine entered a neutral port it should be interned. The point was further made that grave danger was incurred by neutral submarines in the navigation of regions frequented by belligerent submarines.