tle less than genius. By this time Washington was
pretty wearied of the _Dacia_, for mature consideration had convinced
the Department that Great Britain had the right on its side. Washington
would have been only too glad to find a way out of the difficult
position into which it had been forced, and this Page well understood.
But this government always finds itself in an awkward plight in any
controversy with Great Britain, because the hyphenates raise such a
noise that it has difficulty in deciding such disputes upon their
merits. To ignore the capture of this ship by the British would have
brought all this hullabaloo again about the ears of the Administration.
But the position of France is entirely different; the memories of
Lafayette and Rochambeau still exercise a profound spell on the American
mind; France does not suffer from the persecution of hyphenate
populations, and Americans will stand even outrages from France without
getting excited. Page knew that if the British seized the _Dacia_, the
cry would go up in certain quarters for immediate war, but that, if
France committed the same crime, the guns of the adversary would be
spiked. It was purely a case of sentiment and "psychology." And so the
event proved. His suggestion was at once acted on; a French cruiser went
out into the Channel, seized the offending ship, took it into port,
where a French prize court promptly condemned it. The proceeding did not
cause even a ripple of hostility. The _Dacia_ was sold to Frenchmen,
rechristened the _Yser_ and put to work in the Mediterranean trade. The
episode was closed in the latter part of 1915 when a German submarine
torpedoed the vessel and sent it to the bottom.

Such was the spirit which Page and Sir Edward Grey brought to the
solution of the great shipping problems of 1914-1917. There is much more
to tell of this great task of "waging neutrality," and it will be told
in its proper place. But already it is apparent to what extent these two
men served the great cause of English-speaking civilization. Neither
would quibble or uphold an argument which he thought unjust, even though
his nation might gain in a material sense, and neither would pitch the
discussion in any other key than forbearance and mutual accommodation
and courtliness. For both men had the same end in view. They were both
thinking, not of the present, but of the coming centuries. The
cooeperation of the two nations in meeting the dangers of autocracy