union, and firmness.  I believe that the foreign policy we must follow cannot be characterized better or more rightly (applause).”

A German saying has it that one is wiser coming from, than going to, the Rathaus, the place of counsel.  It is easy to see now that it would have been better had the Emperor not written the letter, better had the Times not brought it to public notice, better, also, had the Emperor or Lord Tweedmouth or Sir Edward Grey—­for one of them must have spoken of it to a third person—­not let its existence become known to anyone save themselves, at least not until the international situation which prompted it had ceased.  As regards the Emperor in particular, judgment must be based on the answer to the question, Was the letter a private letter or a public document?  The Times regarded it as the latter, and many politicians took that view, but probably nine people out of ten now regard it as the former.  For such, the reflection that it was part of a private correspondence between two friendly statesmen, both well known to be sincere in their views that a country’s navy—­that all military preparations—­are based on motives of national defence, not of high-handed aggression, must absolve the Emperor from any suspicion of political immorality.  It was unfortunate that the letter was written, unfortunate that it was made known publicly, but, as it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, the episode may profit monarchs as well as meaner folk as an object lesson in the advantages of discretion.

Discussion of the Tweedmouth letter had hardly ceased when the whole question of the “personal regiment” was again, and as it now, five years after, appears, finally thrashed out between the Emperor and his folk.  Before, however, considering the Daily Telegraph interview and the Emperor’s part in it, something should be said as to the state of international ill-feeling which caused him to sanction its publication.

The ill-feeling was no sudden wave of hostility or pique, but a sentiment which had for years existed in the minds of both nations—­a sentiment of mutual suspicion.  The Englishman thought Germany was prepared to dispute with him the maritime supremacy of Great Britain, the German that England intended to attack Germany before Germany could carry her great design into execution.  The proximate cause of the irritation—­for it has not yet got beyond that—­was the decision, as announced in her Navy Law of 1898, to build a fleet of battleships which Germany, but especially the Emperor, considered necessary to complete the defences, and appropriate for affirming the dignity, of the Empire.