130 ON THE SUITABILITY OF CURRENT DESIGN OF SUBMARINES 
Germania Werft at Kiel at that time, I was able to explain to them their difficulties and 
advise how to correct them. I was informed they made these corrections and the boats 
functioned properly. 
Shortly after this they brought out the U-1, Germany’s first submarine, which vessel was 
built on the same lines. 
About this time a proposition was made by the Krupps for a partnership arrangement 
with my company with them in Germany, Russia, and also in Italy. I negotiated a contract 
with their managing director, Mr. Otto Exius, and others of their directorate, which con- 
tract their directors passed on and approved, and I sent that contract to America to be ap- 
proved by my directors. They did not approve it for several months. The conditions 
and terms of that contract were that they, the Krupps, were to pay us 6 per cent on all sub- 
marines built in Germany, 12.5 per cent on all submarines built in Russia, and 7% per cent 
on all submarines built for Italy. 
After the success of the Lake type over all competitors in Russia, the Russian Govern- 
ment wanted me to put up a plant there and Russian officers promised the ground and also 
the capital to build a plant, but I did not care to live permanently in Russia as I had a 
family of two daughters and a son growing up and wished to return to my own country and 
secure recognition of my inventions here. Consequently, Krupps agreed to build the plant a 
and manage it, I to act in an advisory capacity. My directors, however, did not accept the 
Krupp contract, on the ground they did not think it advisable to place others in competition 
with us on a 6 per cent basis. I said that if they did not, the Krupps would come into com- 
petition with us anyhow, and we would get nothing, and that is exactly what happened. 
When I returned to Germany, after spending some months trying to get the consent 
of my directors to the contract, Krupps’ attorney said, “Mr. Lake, we are very sorry. We 
have investigated the German patent situation and we think that you have not protected your- 
self by patents in this country as you have in the United States; we are free to build the 
Lake type of boat in Germany, and we are going to do so.” They have done that ever since. 
Possibly, under the circumstances, any government is justified in using any means they 
find available for the protection of their country, and as things are turning out it looks to me 
as if the submarine is the thing which Germany has got to rely upon for the purpose of 
bringing about a settlement of some kind, and I believe the submarine is going to be the in- 
strument that will eventually bring about peace between these different countries. 
I do not believe there will ever be another maritime war after this one. I think the 
submarine will prove that no country can longer claim to be mistress of the sea, that the 
sea is a highway that every nation shall have the privilege to send their ships over and to 
transport commerce, on equal terms with every other nation. 
The submarine is peculiar in the fact that it is able to prevent the carrying on of com- 
merce, if necessary, but it is useless for invading purposes, as the moment any portion is 
exposed on the surface it becomes vulnerable. It is a peace-making weapon, for that rea- 
son. You can build guns to meet guns, aeroplanes to meet aeroplanes, and you can destroy 
life and property with various other instruments,—and this has always been done from 
the time when human beings made their weapons of stones and pounded each other to death. 
But up to the present time the submarine is the first weapon that has ever been invented 
that has the peculiar capacity, in the prosecution of maritime wars, to defend, or to attack 
surface vessels on the high seas, but at the same time cannot be used to invade a country, 
because the moment a submarine shows her conning-tower above the surface she is vulner- 
