Then  Lansing  to  the  bat:

"No,  no,"  says  Lansing,  "you've  got  to  adopt  it  all."
Four  tunes  he's  made  me  ask  for  its  adoption,  the  last
time  coupled  with  a  proposition  that  if  England  would
adopt  it,  she  might  issue  a  subsequent  proclamation  say-
ing that,  since  the  Declaration  is  contradictory,  she  will


382       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE

construe  it  her  own  way,  and  the  United  States  will  raise
no  objection!

Then  he  sends  eighteen  pages  of  fine-spun  legal  argu-
ments (not  all  sound  by  any  means)  against  the  sections
of  the  English  proclamations  that  have  been  put  forth,
giving  them  a  strained  and  unfriendly  interpretation.
In  a  word,  England  has  acted  in  a  friendly  way  to  us
and  will  so  act,  if  we  allow  her.  But  Lansing,  instead  of
trusting  to  her  good  faith  and  reserving  all  our  rights
under  international  law  and  usage,  imagines  that  he  can
force  her  to  agree  to  a  code  that  the  Germans  now  agree
to  because,  in  Germany's  present  predicament,  it  will  be
especially  advantageous  to  Germany.  Instead  of  trust-
ing her,  he  assumes  that  she  means  to  do  wrong  and  pro-
ceeds to  try  to  bind  her  in  advance.  He  hauls  her  up  and
tries  her  in  court — that's  his  tone.
Now  the  relations  that  I  have  established  with  Sir
Edward  Grey  have  been  built  up  on  frankness,  fairness
and  friendship.  I  can't  have  relations  of  any  other  sort
nor  can  England  and  the  United  States  have  relations  of
any  other  sort.  This  is  the  place  we've  got  to  now.  Lan-
sing seems  to  assume  that  the  way  to  an  amicable  agree-
ment is  through  an  angry  controversy.
