s
and never an injury but Carden[97], and who sincerely try now to
meet our wishes. It would be too asinine an act ever to merit
forgiveness or ever to be forgotten. I should blame myself the rest
of my life. It would grieve Sir Edward more than anything except
this war. It would knock the management of foreign affairs by this
Administration into the region of sheer idiocy. I'm afraid any
peace talk from us, as it is, would merely be whistling down the
wind. If we break with England--not on any case or act of violence
to our shipping--but on a useless discussion, in advance, of
general principles of conduct during the war--just for a
discussion--we've needlessly thrown away our great chance to be of
some service to this world gone mad. If Lansing isn't stopped,
that's what he will do. Why doesn't the President see Spring Rice?
Why don't you take him to see him?

Good night, my good friend. I still have hope that the President
himself will take this in hand.

Yours always,
W.H.P.

The letters and the cablegrams which Page was sending to Colonel House
and the State Department at this time evidently ended the matter. By the
middle of October the two nations were fairly deadlocked. Sir Edward
Grey's reply to the American proposal had been an acceptance of the
Declaration of London with certain modifications. For the list of
contraband in the Declaration he had submitted the list already adopted
by Great Britain in its Order in Council, and he had also rejected that
article which made it impossible for Great Britain to apply the
doctrine of "continuous voyage" to conditional contraband. The modified
acceptance, declared Mr. Lansing, was a practical rejection--as of
course it was, and as it was intended to be. So the situation remained
for several exciting weeks, the State Department insisting on the
Declaration in full, precisely as the legal luminaries had published it
five years before, the Foreign Office courteously but inflexibly
refusing to accede. Only the cordial personal relations which prevailed
between Grey and Page prevented the crisis from producing the most
disastrous results. Finally, on October 17th, Page proposed by cable an
arrangement which he hoped would settle the matter. This was that the
King should issue a proclamation accepting the Declaration with
practically the modifications suggested above, and that a new