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Show T OBERT P. SKINNER, U. AV S. consul general at London, Lon-don, whose report upset arguments argu-ments of British statesmen. l" if "v-v 1 W . l : 1 i- jju' - i t 1 i - f i i ' " ' f ; 3? - ' i CLEVER ENVOY TRIPS EKWIEN Consul General Skinner, Who Is Home to Report, Angered Foreign Office. By International News Service. WASHINGTON, Nov. 6. Consul General Skinner has returned from London Lon-don to report. He is said to have incurred in-curred the enmity of the English authorities au-thorities because of information he furnished fur-nished the United States government concerning the increased trade of Great Britain with neutral countries. At first glance this would not appear to be a high crime, or even a misdemeanor, but in war times things are different. It will be recalled that a few months ago the British government sent several sev-eral notes to our government regarding the seizure of American Ehips bound for neutral ports. The English gov ernment asserted its right to seize the ships, on the theory that the cargoes were destined ultimately for the German Ger-man army. To support this contention they pointed out that American trade with neutral countries had vastly increased in-creased since the war began. This abnormal ab-normal increase, it was argued, was due to the fact that American goods for the German army were passing through neutral countries. Along came Consul General Skinner about this time with a report that British trade with neutral countries such as The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark had increased abnormally since the beginning of the war. Here was where your Uncle Samuel Sam-uel said, "Aha, then, the English are supplying the German army with goods." It was an argument which proved a boomerang to the British statesmen, and naturally they were considerably peeved when they discovered discov-ered that Mr. Skinner had given them away. It was reported that the English government gov-ernment had demanded Skinner's recall, re-call, but this has been officially denied in London. He is merely home to make a report. |