E.M.  HOUSE.

On March 5th the President made good his promise by going before Congress and asking the two houses to repeal that clause in the Panama legislation which granted preferential treatment to American coastwise shipping.  The President’s address was very brief and did not discuss the matter in the slightest detail.  Mr. Wilson made the question one simply of national honour.  The exemption, he said, clearly violated the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty and there was nothing left to do but to set the matter right.  The part of the President’s address that aroused the greatest interest was the conclusion: 

“I ask this of you in support of the foreign policy of the Administration.  I shall not know how to deal with other matters of even greater delicacy and nearer consequence, if you do not grant it to me in ungrudging measure.”

The impression that this speech made upon the statesman who then presided over the British Foreign office is evident from the following letter that he wrote to the Ambassador in Washington.

     Sir Edward Grey to Sir C. Spring Rice
     Foreign Office,

     March 13, 1914.

     SIR: 

In the course of a conversation with the American Ambassador to-day, I took the opportunity of saying how much I had been struck by President Wilson’s Message to Congress about the Panama Canal tolls.  When I read it, it struck me that, whether it succeeded or failed in accomplishing the President’s object, it was something to the good of public life, for it helped to lift public life to a higher plane and to strengthen its morale.

     I am, &c.,

     E. GREY.

Two days after his appearance before Congress the President wrote to his Ambassador: 

     From the President
     The White House, Washington,

     March 7, 1914.

     MY DEAR PAGE: 

I have your letters of the twenty-second and twenty-fourth of February and I thank you for them most warmly.  Happily, things are clearing up a little in the matters which have embarrassed our relations with Great Britain, and I hope that the temper of public opinion is in fact changing there, as it seems to us from this distance to be changing.

     Your letters are a lamp to my feet.  I feel as I read that their
     analysis is searching and true.

Things over here go on a tolerably even keel.  The prospect at this moment for the repeal of the tolls exemption is very good indeed.  I am beginning to feel a considerable degree of confidence that the repeal will go through, and the Press of the country is certainly standing by me in great shape.

My thoughts turn to you very often with gratitude and affectionate regard.  If there is ever at any time anything specific you want to learn, pray do not hesitate to ask it of me directly, if you think best.

     Carden was here the other day and I spent an hour with him, but I
     got not even a glimpse of his mind.  I showed him all of mine that
     he cared to see.