Page was attempting to perform his part in introducing new standards into diplomacy.

His discussions of Mexico had taken the form of that "idealism" which he was apparently having some difficulty in persuading British statesmen and the British public to accept.

He was doing his best to help bring about that day when, in Gladstone's famous words, "the idea of public right would be the governing idea" of international relations.

But while the American Ambassador was preaching this new conception, the position of his own country on one important matter was a constant impediment to his efforts.

Page was continually confronted by the fact that the United States, high-minded as its foreign policy might pretend to be, was far from "idealistic" in the observance of the treaty that it had made with Great Britain concerning the Panama Canal.