for Great Britain and the allied governments; and securities, largely British owned stocks and bonds, had been deposited to protect the bankers.  The money was now coming due; if the obligations were not met, the credit of Great Britain in this country would reach the vanishing point.  Though at first there was a slight misunderstanding about this matter, the American Government finally paid this over-draft out of the proceeds of the first Liberty Loan.  This act saved the credit of the allied countries; it was, of course, only the beginning of the financial support that America brought to the allied cause; the advances that were afterward furnished from the American Treasury made possible the purchases of food and supplies in enormous quantities.  The first danger that threatened, the isolation and starvation of Great Britain, was therefore overcome.  It was the joint product of Page’s work in London and that of the Balfour Commission in the United States.

III

Until these financial arrangements had been made there was no certainty that the supplies which were so essential to victory would ever leave the United States; this obstruction at the source had now been removed.  But the greater difficulty still remained.  The German submarines were lying off the waters south and west of Ireland ready to sink the supply ships as soon as they entered the prohibited zone.  Mr. Balfour and his associates were working also on this problem in Washington; and, at the same time, Page and Admiral Sims and the British Admiralty were bending all their energies in London to obtain immediate cooeperation.

A remark which Mr. Balfour afterward made to Admiral Sims shows the frightful nature of the problem which was confronting Great Britain at that time.

“That was a terrible week we spent at sea in that voyage to the United States,” Mr. Balfour said.  “We knew that the German submarine campaign was succeeding.  Their submarines were destroying our shipping and we had no means of preventing it.  I could not help thinking that we were facing the defeat of Great Britain.”

Page’s papers show that as early as February 25th he understood in a general way the disheartening proportions of the German success.  “It is a momentous crisis,” he wrote at that time.  “The submarines are destroying shipping at an appalling rate.”  Yet it was not until Admiral Sims arrived in London, on April 9th, that the Ambassador learned all the details.  In sending the Admiral to England the Navy Department had acted on an earnest recommendation from Page.  The fact that the American Navy was inadequately represented in the British capital had long been a matter of embarrassment to him.  The ability and personal qualifications of our attaches had been unquestioned; but none of them during the war had been men of high rank, and this in itself proved to be a constant impediment to their success.