Faithfully yours,
     E.M.  HOUSE.

Colonel House’s next letter is most important, for it records the birth of that new idea which afterward became a ruling thought with President Wilson and the cause of almost endless difficulties in his dealings with Great Britain.  The “new phase of the situation” to which he refers is “the Freedom of the Seas” and this brief note to Page, dated March 27, 1915, contains the first reference to this idea on record.  Indeed, it is evident from the letter itself that Colonel House made this notation the very day the plan occurred to him.

From Edward M. House Embassy of the United States of America, Berlin, Germany.  March 27, 1915.

     DEAR PAGE: 

I have had a most satisfactory talk with the Chancellor.  After conferring with Stovall[111], Page[112], and Willard[113], I shall return to Paris and then to London to discuss with Sir Edward a phase of the situation which promises results.

I did not think of it until to-day and have mentioned it to both the Chancellor and Zimmermann, who have received it cordially, and who join me in the belief that it may be the first thread to bridge the chasm.

     I am writing hastily, for the pouch is waiting to be closed.

     Faithfully yours,
     E.M.  HOUSE.

The “freedom of the seas” was merely a proposal to make all merchant shipping, enemy and neutral, free from attack in time of war.  It would automatically have ended all blockades and all interference with commerce.  Germany would have been at liberty to send all her merchant ships to sea for undisturbed trade with all parts of the world in war time as in peace, and, in future, navies would be used simply for fighting.  Offensively, their purpose would be to bombard enemy fortifications, to meet enemy ships in battle, and to convoy ships which were transporting troops for the invasion of enemy soil; defensively, their usefulness would consist in protecting the homeland from such attacks and such invasions.  Perhaps an argument can be made for this new rule of warfare, but it is at once apparent that it is the most startling proposal brought forth in modern times in the direction of disarmament.  It meant that Great Britain should abandon that agency of warfare with which she had destroyed Napoleon, and with which she expected to destroy Germany in the prevailing struggle—­the blockade.  From a defensive standpoint, Colonel House’s proposed reform would have been a great advantage to Britain, for an honourable observance of the rule would have insured the British people its food supply in wartime.  With Great Britain, however, the blockade has been historically an offensive measure:  it is the way in which England has always made war.  Just what reception this idea would have had with official London, in April, 1915, had Colonel House been able to present it as his own proposal,