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Show . WITH AMBASSADOR AMERICAN REPRESENTATIVE INVITED IN-VITED TO VISIT EMPEROR AT BATTLE FRONT. Believed That American Note Has Produced an Impression of Importance. Impor-tance. Outcome Regarded With Keen Interest. Washington. Press reports announcing an-nouncing that the German emperor had invited Ambassador Gerard to confer with him at the battle front were read Sunday night with keen interest in-terest by officials of the United States government. Aside from the indication indica-tion that the American note had produced pro-duced an impression of supreme importance, im-portance, it was thought that the emperor em-peror had decided on a conference so quickly because only four days remained re-mained before the German admiralty's proclamation for a submarine campaign cam-paign on merchant ships goes into effect. It was believed "here that the ambassador am-bassador might explain at length the American viewpoint, as he .is reported to have done in a conference with the imperial chancellor, and that perhaps per-haps one of the chief purposes of the informal conferences with Ambassador Ambassa-dor Gerard was to elicit from the American government some understanding under-standing as to its .position regarding shipments of conditional contraband destined to Germany's civilian population. popu-lation. Inasmuch as the German sea war zone proclamation is described as a retaliatory step against the allies al-lies tieoause of the alleged interference interfer-ence by the latter with shipments of foodstuffs -destined for the population of Germany, the growing importance of this question was generally admitted admit-ted here. There is every reason to believe that tit will be one of the chief points made by the United States in its next communication to Great Britain Brit-ain on the subject of contraband. |