The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Page)
My Dear Mr. Page: I have received your letter of August 24, 1915, concerning stopped telegrams, copies of which the Department has, [Page 724] from time to time, sent to you for submission to the British Foreign Office, and note that you are bringing to the attention of the British Government only those telegrams bearing dates later than July 1.
While I appreciate fully the difficulties which you have encountered in this matter of cable censorship, in view of the fact that we have informed the senders of all of the stopped telegrams sent you that they will be brought to the attention of the British Government, I think it advisable that you should send them all in regardless of the dates they bear.
In this connection and for your own information, there is transmitted, herewith, translation of a note dated July 30,1 which the French Foreign Office have addressed to the Embassy at Paris concerning stopped telegrams and which is only one of several replies which they have made to our representations in the premises.
While it is thoroughly understood by the Department that the British censorship authorities must be taxed to their capacity with work, it does seem that they should be willing to at least do as much as the French authorities are doing in the way of furnishing us with reasons why commercial cablegrams to and from this country are not permitted to pass, when we request such information, in order that the Department may make replies to the numerous inquiries made by complaining concerns in the United States.
Will you then please bring the matter again informally to the attention of the appropriate authorities and urge that efforts be made to furnish you with the reasons in each case why the messages in question have not been allowed to go through.
Very sincerely yours,
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