There was, and not so very long ago, a similar state of tension, prolonged for many years, between England and France.  That tension not only ceased, but was converted into political friendship by the Anglo-French Agreement of 1904.  Parallel with this tension between England and France was the tension between England and Russia, owing to the latter’s advance towards England’s Indian possessions.  The latter state of things ended with the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1907, and it should engender satisfaction and hope, therefore, to those who now apprehend a war between England and Germany to note that neither of the tensions referred to, though both were long and bitter, developed into war.

The tension between England and Germany of late years has been tightened rather than relaxed by ministerial speeches as well as by newspaper polemics in both countries.  One of the most disturbing of the former was the speech delivered by Mr. Lloyd George at the Mansion House on July 21, 1911.  Doubtless with the approval of the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, Mr. Lloyd George said: 

“I believe it is essential, in the highest interest not merely of this country, but of the world, that Britain should at all hazards maintain her place and her prestige amongst the Great Powers of the world.  Her potent influence has many a time been in the past, and may yet be in the future, invaluable to the cause of human liberty.  It has more than once in the past redeemed continental nations, which are sometimes too apt to forget that service, from overwhelming disasters and even from national extinction.  I would make great sacrifices to preserve peace.  I conceive that nothing would justify a disturbance of international goodwill except questions of the gravest national moment.  But if a situation were to be forced upon us in which peace could only be preserved by the surrender of the great and beneficent position Britain has won by centuries of heroism and achievement, by allowing Britain to be treated, where her interests are vitally affected, as if she were of no account in the cabinet of nations, then I say emphatically that peace at that price would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure.”

These rhetorical platitudes were uttered at the time of the “conversations” between the French and German Foreign Offices about the compensation claimed by Germany for giving France, once for all, a free hand in Morocco.  Germany was apparently making demands of an exorbitant character, and what Mr. Lloyd George really meant was that if Germany persisted in these demands England would fight on the side of France in order to resist them.  As a genuinely democratic speaker, however, he followed the rule of many publicists, who are paid for their articles by the column and say to themselves, “Why use two words when five will do?”

Another unfortunate remark that may be noted in this connexion was that made by Mr. Winston Churchill in referring to the German navy as “to some extent a luxury.”  The remark, though true (also to a certain extent), was unfortunate, for it irritated public opinion in Germany, where it was regarded as a species of impertinent interference.