The intimate papers of Colonel House arranged as a narrative by Charles Seymour.

202 INTIMATE PAPERS OF COLONEL HOUSE

ing to place their cards on the table; and the relations he developed with the British through Sir William Tyrrell were
intimate. Tyrrell responded readily. 'You will forgive, I
know,' he wrote to House on January 20, 1914, 'the frankness of my utterance, but that is the basis of our relationship, isn't it?' As a result of this intimacy, a quite informal,
but none the less significant, understanding was reached.
The British Foreign Office made plain to Sir Lionel Garden
that he must not take steps to interfere in any way with Wilson's anti-Huerta policy in Mexico. Tyrrell on November
26 showed to House despatches from Grey, plainly indicating
this; and henceforth the Administration profited by the
British influence. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that
the abdication and flight of Huerta, in July, 1914, was directly related to the withdrawal of British support. Huerta's
elimination was the first and perhaps the only diplomatic triumph won by Wilson in his Mexican policy, and it is right
that future historians should understand that something of
it was due to British cooperation.
On the other hand, President Wilson promised to push the
repeal of the clause exempting American coastwise shipping
from the Canal tolls, provided the British would not hurry
him. To this they gladly agreed, and on December 13,
House wrote to Page: 'Sir Cecil Spring-Rice will leave the
Panama tolls question entirely in our hands.' The conversation with the British Ambassador to which House refers is
interesting in view of the events of 1914, for it indicated how
thoroughly Sir Edward Grey was determined to base his foreign policy upon the principle of the sanctity of treaties.
'December 11, 1913: I lunched at the British Embassy. I
was the only guest. Sir Cecil Spring-Rice and I talked of
the Panama tolls question, and he agreed to leave the matter
alone and let us take it up at our leisure and handle it in the
way we thought best. He said that as far as the monetary