In this connection I shall take the liberty of referring with one more word to the reproaches, often occurring in the press and also in the Reichstag, that I had frequently and abruptly changed my views.  Well, I am not one of those who at any time of their life have believed, or believe today, that they can learn no more.  If a man says to me:  “Twenty years ago you held the same opinion as I; I still hold it, but you have changed your views,” I reply:  “You see, I was as clever twenty years ago as you are today.  Today I know more, I have learned things in these twenty years.”  But, gentlemen, I will not even rely on the justice of the remark that the man who does not learn also fails to progress and cannot keep abreast of his time.  People are falling behind when they remain rooted in the position they occupied years ago.  However, I do not at all intend to excuse myself with such observations, for I have always had one compass only, one lode-star by which I have steered:  Salus Publica, the welfare of the State.  Possibly I have often acted rashly and hastily since I first began my career, but whenever I had time to think I have always acted according to the question, “What is useful, advantageous, and right for my fatherland, and—­as long as this was only Prussia—­for my dynasty, and today—­for the German nation?” I have never been a theorist.  The systems which bin and separate parties are for me of secondary importance.  The nation comes first, its position in the world and its independence, and above all our organization along lines inch will make it possible for us to draw the free breath of a great nation.

Everything else, a liberal, reactionary, or conservative constitution—­gentlemen, I freely confess, all this I consider in second place.  It is the luxury of furnishing the house, when the house is firmly established.  In the interest of the country I can parley now with one person, now with another in purely party questions.  Theories I barter away cheaply.  First let us build a structure secure on the outside and firmly knit on the inside, and protected by the ties of a national union.  After that, when you ask my advice about furnishing the house with more or less liberal constitutional fittings, you may perhaps hear me say, “Ah well, I have no preconceived ideas.  Make your suggestions, and, when the sovereign whom I serve agrees, you will find no objections on principle on my part.”  It can be done thus, and again thus.  There are many roads leading to Rome.  There are times when one should govern liberally, and times when one should govern autocratically.  Everything changes.  Nothing is eternal in these matters.  But of the structure of the German empire and the union of the German nation I demand that they be free and unassailable, with not only a passing field fortification on one side.  I have given to its creation and growth my entire strength from the very beginning.  And if you point to a single moment when I have not steered by this direction of the compass-needle, you may perhaps prove that I have erred, but you cannot prove that I have for one moment lost sight of the national goal.