Commenting on this despatch, the New York World said: 

“Not long ago it was the fashion among the opponents of the Administration to jeer loudly at the impotent writing of notes.  And even among the supporters of the Administration there grew an uneasy feeling that we had had notes ad nauseam.

“Yet these plodding and undramatic notes arouse in Germany a feeling very different from one of ridicule.  The resentful respect for our notes is there admirably summed up by a member of the Reichstag who to the correspondent of the United Press exclaimed bitterly:  ’Our present navy is held in a net of notes.’

“Nets may not be so spectacular as knuckle-dusters, but they are slightly more civilised and generally more efficient.”

The National Liberal Reichstag member who was quoted was Dr. Gustav Stressemann.  Stressemann is one of the worst reactionaries in Germany but he likes to pose as a progressive.  He was one of the first men to suggest that the Reichstag form a committee on foreign relations to consult with and have equal power of decision with the Foreign Office.

For a great many months the Socialist deputies of the Prussian Diet have been demanding election reforms.  Their demands were so insistent that over a year ago the Chancellor, when he read the Kaiser’s address from the throne room in the residence palace in Berlin to the deputies, promised election reforms in Prussia—­after the war.  But during last summer the Socialists began to demand immediate election reforms.  To further embarrass the Chancellor and the Government, the National Liberals made the same demands, knowing all the time that if the Government ever attempted it, they could swing the Reichstag majority against the proposal by technicalities.

Throughout the summer months the Government could not hush up the incessant discussion of war aims.  More than one newspaper was suppressed for demanding peace or for demanding a statement of the Government’s position in regard to Belgium and Northern France.  The peace movement within Germany grew by leaps and bounds.  The Socialists demanded immediate action by the Government.  The Conservatives, the National Liberals and the Catholic party wanted peace but only the kind of a peace which Germany could force upon the Entente.  The Chancellor and other German leaders tried again throughout the summer and fall to get the outside world interested in peace but at this time the English and French attacks on the Somme were engaging the attention and the resources of the whole world.

Before these conflicting movements within Germany can be understood one must know something of the organisation of Germany in war time.