not once but half a dozen times, at the very beginning of the war, on England’s adoption of the Declaration of London entire in spite of the fact that Parliament had distinctly declined to adopt it.  Of course we had to give in—­after we had produced a distinctly unfriendly atmosphere and much feeling.

     (2) We denied the British right to put copper on the contraband
     list—­much to their annoyance.  Of course we had at last to
     acquiesce.  They were within their rights.

     (3) We protested against bringing ships into port to examine them. 
     Of course we had to give in—­after producing irritation.

(4) We made a great fuss about stopped telegrams.  We have no case at all; but, even after acknowledging that we have no case, every Pouch continues to bring telegrams with the request that I ask an explanation why they were stopped.  Such explanations are practically refused.  I have 500 telegrams.  Periodically I wire the state of the case and ask for more specific instructions.  I never get an answer to these requests.  But the Department continues to send the telegrams!  We confessedly have no case here; and this method can produce nothing but irritation.

I could extend this list to 100 examples—­of mere lawyer-like methods—­mere useless technicalities and objections which it is obvious in the beginning cannot be maintained.  A similar method is now going on about cotton.  Now this is not the way Sir Edward Grey takes up business.  It’s not the way I’ve done business all my life, nor that you have, nor other frank men who mean what they say and do not say things they do not mean.  The constant continuation of this method is throwing away the real regard and confidence of the British Government and of the British public—­very fast, too.

I sometimes wish there were not a lawyer in the world.  I heard the President say once that it took him twenty years to recover from his legal habit of mind.  Well, his Administration is suffering from it to a degree that is pathetic and that will leave bad results for 100 years.

I suspect that in spite of all the fuss we have made we shall at last come to acknowledge the British blockade; for it is pretty nearly parallel to the United States blockade of the South during our Civil War.  The only difference is—­they can’t make the blockade of the Baltic against the traffic from the Scandinavian neutral states effective.  That’s a good technical objection; but, since practically all the traffic between those States and Germany is in our products, much of the real force of it is lost.

If a protest is made against cotton being made contraband—­it’ll amount to nothing and give only irritation.  It will only play into Hoke Smith[14]—­German hands and accomplish nothing here.  We make as much fuss about points which we have silently to yield later as about a real principle.  Hence they