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.