House's communication would receive a friendly hearing. The idea
that Colonel House suggested was merely the initial stage of a plan
which soon took on more ambitious proportions. At the time of Sir
William Tyrrell's American visit, the Winston Churchill proposal for a
naval holiday was being actively discussed by the British and the
American press. In one form or another it had been figuring in the news
for nearly two years. Viscount Haldane, in the course of his famous
visit to Berlin in February, 1912, had attempted to reach some
understanding with the German Government on the limitation of the German
and the British fleets. The Agadir crisis of the year before had left
Europe with a bad state of nerves, and there was a general belief that
only some agreement on shipbuilding could prevent a European war. Lord
Haldane and von Tirpitz spent many hours discussing the relative sizes
of the two navies, but the discussions led to no definite
understanding. In March, 1913, Mr. Churchill, then First Lord of the
Admiralty, took up the same subject in a different form. In this speech
he first used the words "naval holiday," and proposed that Germany and
Great Britain should cease building first-class battleships for one
year, thus giving the two nations a breathing space, during which time
they might discuss their future plans in the hope of reaching a
permanent agreement. The matter lagged again until October 18, 1913,
when, in a speech at Manchester, Mr. Churchill placed his proposal in
this form: "Now, we say to our great neighbour, Germany, 'If you will
put off beginning your two ships for twelve months from the ordinary
date when you would have begun them, we will put off beginning our four
ships, in absolute good faith, for exactly the same period.'" About the
same time Premier Asquith made it clear that the Ministry was back of
the suggested programme. In Germany, however, the "naval holiday" soon
became an object of derision. The official answer was that Germany had a
definite naval law and that the Government could not entertain any
suggestion of departing from it. Great Britain then answered that, for
every keel Germany laid down, the Admiralty would lay down two. The
outcome, therefore, of this attempt at friendship was that the two
nations had been placed farther apart than ever.

The dates of this discussion, it will be observed, almost corresponded
with the period covered by the Tyrrell visit to America. This fact