File No. 841.731/530
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Page) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 27.]
Sir: I have had the honor to receive during the last few weeks several communications from you enclosing copies of stopped telegrams; and in these communications you have asked me to bring these messages to the attention of the Foreign Office, in connection with my representations regarding the censorship of commercial cables.
A very large number of the stopped cables which you sent me earlier I submitted to the Foreign Office and through the Foreign Office to the censor, and at this time I had several very thorough going conferences with the censors. The result, you will recall, was their very firm stand on their right to stop any or all cables that came over their wires. They were very courteous, they answered all the questions, I think, that I put to them, and you will recall that they explained that most of the cables that they stopped were stopped because they were supposed to promote trading with the enemy. You will recall also the copy of the rules that were issued whereby the censors work and which I transmitted to you.
These representations, which extended over quite a long period. I have reason to hope made them more careful than they had been in stopping cables, and they assured me that they would not stop any except such as they felt obliged to stop under the rules they had adopted. I saw no way to go further with any effect. I so reported to you, and you were kind enough to telegraph me that you saw nothing further at that time for me to do in the matter. Since then I have presented a number of the cables that you have sent me, which seem to give some particular reason why the subject should be brought up again, but I confess that in no case have I had a definite result.
The cable messages that I have received, therefore, from you more lately, and there are quite a number of them in all, I have not presented, [Page 715] for I do not know what to say or how to try to go further than I have gone. Of course, by the time that the cables reach me there is no chance of having those particular messages forwarded, so much time has elapsed that they are already dead, and concerning any possible change of their policy, I regret to say that I think that is impossible to accomplish. Unless instructed by you to the contrary, therefore, I shall make no use of these last stopped cable messages which you have sent me
I have [etc.]