To pass judgment in particular cases as to whether or not a breach of confidence has occurred, one must know more of the closely connected circumstances than appears in the article of the Daily Telegraph.  The communication might be justified if it were attempted in one quarter or another to misrepresent our refusal or to throw suspicion on our attitude; circumstances may have previously happened which make allusion to the subject in a confidential correspondence at least intelligible.  Gentlemen, I said before that many of the expressions used in the Daily Telegraph article are too strong.  That is true, in the first place, of the passage where the Kaiser is represented as having said that the majority of the German people are inimically disposed towards England.  Between Germany and England misunderstandings have occurred, serious, regrettable misunderstandings.  But I am conscious of being at one with this entire honourable House in the view that the German people desire peaceful and friendly relations with England on the basis of mutual esteem (loud and general applause)—­and I take note that the speakers of all parties have spoken to-day in the same sense (’Quite right’).  The colours are also too thickly laid on in the place where reference is made to our interests in the Pacific Ocean.  It has been construed in a sense hostile to Japan.  Wrongly:  we have never in the Far East thought of anything but this—­to acquire and maintain for Germany a share of the commerce of Eastern Asia in view of the great economic future of this region.  We are not thinking of maritime adventure there:  aggressive tendencies have as little to say to our naval construction in the Pacific as in Europe.  Moreover, his Majesty the Kaiser entirely agrees with the responsible director of foreign policy in the complete recognition of the high political importance which the Japanese people have achieved by their political strength and military ability.  German policy does not regard it as its task to detract from the enjoyment and development of what Japan has acquired.

“Gentlemen, I am, generally speaking, under the impression that if the material facts—­completely, in their proper shape—­were individually known, the sensation would be no great one; in this instance, too, the whole is more than all the parts taken together.  But above all, gentlemen, one must not, while considering the material things, quite forget the psychology, the tendency.  For two decades our Kaiser has striven, often under very difficult circumstances, to bring about friendly relations between Germany and England.  This honest endeavour has had to contend with obstacles which would have discouraged many.  The passionate partisanship of our people for the Boers was humanly intelligible; feeling for the weaker certainly appeals to the sympathy.  But this partisanship has led to unjustified, and often unmeasured, attacks on England, and similarly unjust and hateful attacks have been