Twenty months later Admiral von Scheer asserted that German submarine losses were more than equalized by new construction. Note the definite acknowledgment of losses and of the necessity for replacing them. In April 1918 Admiral von Capelle, Imperial Secretary of State for the Navy, endeavoured to explain the declining maritime death-rate of the enemy by assuring the Main Committee of the Reichstag that the average loss of British ships from submarine attacks alone, during 1917, was 600,000 tons per month. The truth of the matter was that the average loss from all causes was not more than 333,000 gross tons. According to an official statement circulated to the German Press on the 4th of the following June, food conditions in England were “extraordinarily bad,” because the U-boat campaign was “having the intended result of constantly diminishing England’s food supply.” In actual fact, the U-boats were then having a particularly rough time. So far as the German Independent Socialists were concerned, they did not “look forward with complete confidence,” as Dr Michaelis had professed to do in July 1917, “to the further labours of our brave submarine warriors.” Herr Vogtherr, a member of the party, bluntly remarked that “it cannot be seen that U-boat warfare has brought peace nearer. Meanwhile we continue to destroy tonnage which we shall need after the war in order to obtain necessary raw materials.” As to the latter clause, the British Mercantile Marine has already had something to say. It lost 14,661 gallant fellows through enemy action. According to the statement of a member of the crew of the British destroyer which rammed U 12, some of the prisoners at least were thankful to be in despised England. They said that the coxswain had been a North Sea pilot for fifteen years previous to the outbreak of war, and though the veriest tyro in matters relating to underwater craft, was compelled to take service, presumably because he was well acquainted with the east coast of the United Kingdom. The story of crews being forced with the gentle persuasion of a revolver to board other U-boats while their own was docked to undergo repairs was not necessarily exaggerated. There is evidence that on occasion German seamen were shot for refusing to go on board a submarine. The mate of the Brazilian steamer _Rio Branco_, when taking the ship’s papers to the commander of an enemy U-boat, asked a member of the crew what life was like as a latter-day pirate. He replied in a single word usually taken to denote eternal misery, and added that although he and his mates would like to mutiny, opportunity was never afforded them, because they were shot on the slightest pretext. There is no reason to doubt that crews were sent to sea with insufficient training, and that their _moral_ steadily declined as Allied efforts to tackle the foe developed.