Last Sunday the State Department at Washington issued a letter
from Mr. Bryan to Mr. Stone, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, in which Mr. Bryan answers the charge that the American Government have "shown partiality" to the Allies in the war. Mr. Stone bad asked for information with which he might satisfy the com- plaints of his numerous German-American constituents. Mr. Bryan points out that freedom of communication has been allowed by American submarine cables, but not by wireless, for the simple reason that the wireless station• might have been used for conveying information to ships of war. There was no animus against Germany in enforcing this distinction. The Government have no evidence as yet that American mails have been illegally interfered with. Only two cases are on record of American steamers being detained in order to search for German or Austrian subjects, and both cases are the subject of protect. As regards the British treatment of contraband, the practices complained of are to a large extent outgrowths from America's own policy in the past. The American Government have protested against the seizure of copper by Britain, although in the peat the United States had recognized as contraband all materials from which ammunition is manufactured.
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