File No. 763.72112/1335
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Page) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5 p. m.]
2463. There is an increasing and ominous agitation here in and out of Parliament and among technical men to make cotton contraband. Informally I took up the subject at the Foreign Office yesterday and very fully and plainly informed Lord Crewe that such action would embarrass the Administration and especially would be harmful to pro-British feeling in the United States. I made plain the political bearings of the subject and the danger of adding [Page 193] southern members of Congress and the southern press to the forces of the anti-munitions campaign.
I think that the Government will make a vigorous effort to resist the agitation to make cotton contraband, with what result I cannot predict.