The report of June 30 of the Treasurer of this Company which I forwarded to the Royal Ministry of War on July 13, J. No. 1888, was among the stolen papers. The declaration, published in the papers, of the President of the Ætna Explosive Co. that he intended to throw up powder contracts with the Bridgeport Projectile Co. is of course only newspaper gossip and was already much weakened yesterday through a fresh explanation by the firm (Enclosure V). In connection also with the delivery of presses, I do not believe that the manufacturers will place difficulties in our way because the careful drawing up of the contract excludes all attack on the Projectile Co. under the well-known Sherman Law, and the claim that the manufacturers had supposed the deliveries to be intended for the Allies--in other words, that the contracts had been obtained by us under false representations--offers a legal basis too weak to enable the persons who undertake delivery to risk the expense and results of a lawsuit. The only actual damage consists in that the Russian and English committee have at once broken off their negotiations with the Bridgeport Projectile Co. and that thus our plans to cut off, by the acceptance and nondelivery of a shrapnel contract, other firms here from the possibility of beginning the furnishing of war material have come to nothing. The purchase of phenol by Dr. Schweitzer of the Edison Co., which has at the same time been disclosed, is disposed of by the explanation published to the effect that this phenol is only to be worked up into medicine. Most of all have our efforts for the purchase of liquid chlorine been interfered with, since the tying up through middlemen of the Castner Chemical Company, which is friendly to England, appears now to be out of the question. I shall use the means placed at my disposal (information of Herr Grothen) for the purpose of arriving at an agreement with the Electro Bleaching Company. The published negotiations for the acquisition of the Wright’s patent is without importance, since on our behalf a judicial decision against the Curtiss Company so far as one can see, would not have been obtained.