programme without giving Great Britain an opportunity to intervene by force and nip the enterprise in the bud.  He attributes here to the British Government a policy which is all in the Bismarckian tradition.  It was, in fact, a policy urged by some voices here, voices which, as is always the case, were carried to Germany and magnified by the mega-phone of the Press.[3] That no British Government, in fact, contemplated picking a quarrel with Germany in order to prevent her becoming a naval Power I am myself as much convinced as any other Englishman, and I count the fact as righteousness to our statesmen.  On the other hand, I think it an unfounded conjecture that Prince Buelow was deliberately building with a view to attacking the British Empire.  I see no reason to doubt his sincerity when he says that he looked forward to a peaceful solution of the rivalry between Germany and ourselves, and that France, in his view, not Great Britain, was the irreconcilable enemy.[4] In building her navy, no doubt, Germany deliberately took the risk of incurring a quarrel with England in the pursuit of a policy which she regarded as essential to her development.  It is quite another thing, and would require much evidence to prove that she was working up to a war with the object of destroying the British Empire.

What we have to bear in mind, in estimating the meaning of the German naval policy, is a complex series of motives and conditions:  the genuine need of a navy, and a strong one, to protect trade in the event of war, and to secure a voice in overseas policy; the genuine fear of an attack by the Powers of the Entente, an attack to be provoked by British jealousy; and also that indeterminate ambition of any great Power which may be influencing the policy of statesmen even while they have not avowed it to themselves, and which, expressed by men less responsible and less discreet, becomes part of that “public opinion” of which policy takes account.

[Footnote 1:  Published in 1908.]

[Footnote 2:  See, e.g., Dawson, “Evolution of Modern Germany,” p. 348.]

[Footnote 3:  Some of these are cited in Buelow’s “Imperial Germany,” p. 36.]

[Footnote 4:  See “Imperial Germany,” pp. 48, 71, English translation.]

11. Vain Attempts at Harmony.

It may, however, be reasonably urged that unless the Germans had had aggressive ambitions they would have agreed to some of the many proposals made by Great Britain to arrest on both sides the constantly expanding programmes of naval constructions.  It is true that Germany has always opposed the policy of limiting armaments, whether on land or sea.  This is consonant with that whole militarist view of international politics which, as I have already indicated, is held in a more extreme and violent form in Germany than in any other country, but which is the creed of jingoes and imperialists everywhere.  If the British Government had succeeded