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Show ENGLAND ASKED FOR EXPLANATION REPORTED HAULING DOWN OF AMERICAN FLAG SUBJECT OF AN INVESTIGATION. Claimed That Captain of American Vessel Was Forced to Haul Down Flag When Vessel Carried Certificate Cer-tificate for Her Cargo. Washington. Walter Hines Page, the American ambassador to London, has been cabled by the state department depart-ment to ask the British government for an explanation of the reported insult in-sult to the American flag on the American Amer-ican steamship Greenbrier, the undue un-due detention of the ship, and as to all the other charges made by Captain Cap-tain Farley, who with his ship is now at Bremen. Officials were very careful to say on Wednesday that this request of the state department on Mr. Page simply follows the usual course, as recently In case of the American citizen who was killed by Canadian troopers in Canadian waters. It is privately admitted by the officials offi-cials that the important and serious allegation of Captain Farley is that when the Greenbrier was overhauled on December 30 he was forced to haul down the American flag over his protest. pro-test. It is also charged that the British Brit-ish commander knew, or found out, that the Greenbrier toad a certificate for her cargo from the British consul at New York. Navy officers say that, if it be proven prov-en that the American flag was ordered order-ed down, Great Britain should disavow disa-vow the act of her naval officer. The navy understands that if the Greenbrier had been the ship of a belligerent bel-ligerent the flag might have been taken down and the British flag run up. Otherwise the act was indefensible, indefen-sible, especially in view of the friendly friend-ly tone of Sir Edward Grey's recent note to the United States. |