to Lord Tweedmouth on the subject of British and German naval policy, and that it was supposed that the letter amounted to an attempt to influence, in German interests, the Minister’s responsibility for the British Naval Estimates.  The correspondent concluded by demanding that the letter should be laid before Parliament without delay.  The Times, in a leading article, prognosticated the “painful surprise and just indignation” which must be felt by the people of Great Britain on learning of such “secret appeals to the head of a department on which the nation’s safety depends,” and argued that there could be no question of privacy in a matter of the kind.  The article concluded with the assertion that the letter was obviously an attempt to “make it more easy for German preparations to overtake our own.”  The incident was immediately discussed in all countries, publicly and privately.

Everywhere opinion was divided as to the defensibility of the Emperor’s action; in France the division was reported by the Times correspondent to be “bewildering.”  All the evidence available to prove the Emperor’s impulsiveness was recalled—­the Kruger telegram, the telegram to Count Goluchowski, the Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs, after the Morocco Conference, characterizing him as a “brilliant second (to Germany) in the bout at Algeciras,” the premature telegram conferring the Order of Merit on General Stoessel after the fall of Port Arthur, and other evidence, relevant and irrelevant.  Reuter’s agent in Berlin telegraphed on official authority that the Emperor “had written as a naval expert.”

On the whole, continental opinion may be said to have leaned in favour of the Emperor.  Mr. Asquith, the English Prime Minister, at once made the statement that the letter was a “purely private communication, couched in an entirely friendly spirit,” that it had not been laid before the Cabinet, and that the latter had come to a decision about the Estimates before the letter arrived.

All eyes and ears were now turned to Lord Tweedmouth, and on March 10th he briefly referred to the matter in the House of Lords.  He received the letter, he said, in the ordinary postal way; it was “very friendly in tone and quite informal”; he showed it to Sir Edward Grey, who agreed with him that it should be treated as a private letter, not as an official one; and he replied to it on February 20th, “also in an informal and friendly manner.”  A discussion, in which Lord Lansdowne and Lord Rosebery took part, followed, the former—­to give the tone, not the words of his speech—­handing in a verdict of “Not guilty, but don’t do it again,” against the Emperor, and laying down the principle that “such a communication as that in question must not be allowed to create a diplomatic situation different from that which has been established through official channels and documents”; and Lord Rosebery, while he recognized the importance of the incident, seeking to minimize its effects by an attitude of banter.  The treatment of the incident by the House of Commons as a whole gave considerable satisfaction in Germany, where all efforts were directed to showing malevolent hostility to Germany on the part of the Times.