The British rejection of these overtures, on the other hand, had evidently irritated the international lawyers at Washington.
Mr.Lansing now abandoned his efforts to revolutionize maritime warfare and confined himself to specific protests and complaints.

His communications to the London Embassy dealt chiefly with particular ships and cargoes.

Yet his persistence in regarding all these problems from a strictly legalistic point of view Page regarded as indicating a restricted sense of statesmanship.
_To Edward M.House_ London, August 4, 1915.
MY DEAR HOUSE: ...

The lawyer-way in which the Department goes on in its dealings with Great Britain is losing us the only great international friendship that we have any chance of keeping or that is worth having.

Whatever real principle we have to uphold with Great Britain--that's all right.