I am sure of this.
I have, besides, a most important and confidential message for you from the British Government which they prefer should be orally delivered.
And I have written out a statement of my own study of the situation and of certain proposals which, I think, if they commend themselves to you, will go far to remove this dangerous tension.

I hope to go over them with you at your convenience.
Yours faithfully, WALTER H.PAGE.
The situation was alarming for more reasons than the determination of Germany to force the peace issue.

The State Department was especially irritated at this time over the blockade.

Among the "trade advisers" there was a conviction, which all Page's explanations had not destroyed, that Great Britain was using the blockade as a means of destroying American commerce and securing America's customers for herself.

Great Britain's regulations on the blacklist and "bunker coal" had intensified this feeling.