If you think it advisable, take the matter up with Sir William Tyrrell and then with Sir Edward Grey, or directly with Sir Edward, if you prefer, and give me the benefit of your advice and conclusions.

     Please tell Sir William that I lunched at the Embassy with the
     Spring Rices yesterday, and had a satisfactory talk with both Lady
     Spring Rice and Sir Cecil.

     Faithfully yours,
     E.M.  HOUSE.

* * * * *

It is apparent from Page’s letters that the suggestion now contained in Colonel 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.