ll."

Now Germany isn't engaged in naval warfare to count, and she never
even paid the slightest attention to the Declaration all these
years. But she saw that it would hinder England and help her now,
by forbidding England to stop certain very important war materials
from reaching Germany. "Yah," said Germany. But England said that
her Parliament had rejected the Declaration in times of peace and
that she could now hardly be expected to adopt it in the face of
this Parliamentary rejection. But, to please us, she agreed to
adopt it with only two changes.

Then Lansing to the bat:

"No, no," says Lansing, "you've got to adopt it all."

Four times he's made me ask for its adoption, the last time coupled
with a proposition that if England would adopt it, she might issue
a subsequent proclamation saying that, since the Declaration is
contradictory, she will construe it her own way, and the United
States will raise no objection!

Then he sends eighteen pages of fine-spun legal arguments (not all
sound by any means) against the sections of the English
proclamations that have been put forth, giving them a strained and
unfriendly interpretation.

In a word, England has acted in a friendly way to us and will so
act, if we allow her. But Lansing, instead of trusting to her good
faith and reserving all our rights under international law and
usage, imagines that he can force her to agree to a code that the
Germans now agree to because, in Germany's present predicament, it
will be especially advantageous to Germany. Instead of trusting
her, he assumes that she means to do wrong and proceeds to try to
bind her in advance. He hauls her up and tries her in court--that's
his tone.

Now the relations that I have established with Sir Edward Grey have
been built up on frankness, fairness and friendship. I can't have
relations of any other sort nor can England and the United States
have relations of any other sort. This is the place we've got to
now. Lansing seems to assume that the way to an amicable agreement
is through an angry controversy.

Lansing's method is the trouble. He treats Great Britain, to start
with, as if she were a criminal and an opponent. That's the best
way I know to cause trouble to American shipping and to bring back