for fear of attack by bomb or ram from small craft, and this method of defense for the shipping and offense against the submarine requires small craft in very large numbers.

The introduction of the convoy system, provided there are sufficient destroyers to form an adequate screen to the convoy, will, it is hoped, minimize losses when it is working, and the provision of new offensive measures is progressing; but for the next few months there is only one safeguard, viz., the immediate addition to patrols of every small vessel that can possibly be sent to European waters.

Page, moreover, kept up his own appeal: 

     To the President

     July 5th.

     Strictly confidential to the President and the Secretary

The British Cabinet is engaging in a threatening controversy about the attitude which they should take toward the submarine peril.  There is a faction in the Admiralty which possesses the indisputable facts and which takes a very disheartening view of the situation.  This group insists that the Cabinet should make a confession at least to us of the full extent of the danger and that it should give more information to the public.  The public does not feel great alarm simply because it has been kept in too great ignorance.  But the political faction is so far the stronger.  It attempts to minimize the facts, and, probably for political reasons, it refuses to give these discouraging facts wide publicity.  The politicians urge that it is necessary to conceal the full facts from the Germans.  They also see great danger in throwing the public into a panic.

Mr. Lloyd George is always optimistic and he is too much inclined to yield his judgment to political motives.  In his recent address in Glasgow he gave the public a comforting impression of the situation.  But the facts do not warrant the impression which he gave.

This dispute among the political factions is most unfortunate and it may cause an explosion of public feeling at any time.  Changes in the Cabinet may come in consequence.  If the British public knew all the facts or if the American people knew them, the present British Government would probably fall.  It is therefore not only the submarine situation which is full of danger.  The political situation is in a dangerous state also.

     PAGE.

     To Arthur W. Page

     Wilsford Manor, Salisbury,

     July 8, 1917.

     DEAR ARTHUR: 

Since admirals and generals began to come from home, they and the war have taken my time so completely, day and night, that I haven’t lately written you many things that I should like to tell you.  I’ll try here—­a house of a friend of ours where the only other guest besides your mother and me is Edward Grey.  This is the first time I’ve seen him since