“This is a personal insult which I resent; to be forever misjudged, to have my repeated offers of friendship weighed and scrutinized with jealous, mistrustful eyes taxes my patience severely.  I have said time after time that I am a friend of England, and your press, or at least a considerable section of it, bids the people of England to refuse my proffered hand and insinuates that the other hand holds a dagger.  How can I convince a nation against its will?”

Complaining again of the difficulty imposed on him by English distrust, his Majesty said:  “The prevailing sentiment of large sections of the middle and lower classes of my own people is not friendly to England.  I am, therefore, so to speak, in the minority in my own land, but it is a minority of the best element, just as it is in England respecting Germany.”

The Englishman reminded the Kaiser that not only England but the whole of Europe viewed with disapproval the recent sending of the German Consul at Algiers to Fez and forestalling France and Spain by suggesting the recognition of Sultan Mulai Hafid.  The Kaiser made an impatient gesture and exclaimed:  “Yes? that is an excellent example of the way German actions are misrepresented,” and with vivid directness he defended the aforesaid incident, as the German Government has already done.

The interviewer reminded the Kaiser that an important and influential section of the German newspapers interpreted these acts very differently, and effusively approved of them because they indicated that Germany was bent upon shaping events in Morocco.

“There are mischief makers,” replied the Emperor, “in both countries.  I will not attempt to weigh their relative capacity for misrepresentation, but the facts are as I have stated.  There has been nothing in Germany’s recent action in regard to Morocco contrary to the explicit declaration of my love of peace made both at the Guildhall and in my latest speech at Strassburg.”

Kaiser and the Boer War.

Reverting to his efforts to show his friendship for England, the Kaiser said they had not been confined to words.  It was commonly believed that Germany was hostile to England throughout the Boer war.  Undoubtedly the newspapers were hostile and public opinion was hostile.  “But what,” he asked, “of official Germany?  What brought to a sudden stop, indeed, to an absolute collapse, the European tour of the Boer delegates, who were striving to obtain European intervention?”

“They were feted in Holland.  France gave them a rapturous welcome.  They wished to come to Berlin, where the German people would have crowned them with flowers, but when they asked me to receive them I refused.  The agitation immediately died away and the delegates returned empty handed.  Was that the action of a secret enemy?

“Again, when the struggle was