Whenever the alleged liberalism of William II finds its expression in anything else but speeches, it is easy to take its measure.  He has just shown once more what it really amounts to, in the Treaty of Establishment with Switzerland, wherein restrictions are placed upon the issue of good moral character certificates by German parishes to their parishioners.  These will no longer be available to enable a German to take up his residence in Switzerland.  Henceforward it will be the business of the German Legation to pick and choose those whom it considers eligible to reside in Switzerland, either to practise a profession or to conduct an export business there.  It will be for Germany to decide whether or not her subjects are dangerous abroad.  This would be well enough if it were only a question of restraining rogues, but it is anything but reassuring when we come to deal with the ever advancing phalanx of German spies.

July 9, 1890. [8]

It seems to me that this Wagnerian Emperor, pursuing his legends to the uttermost parts of the earth, is doing his utmost to darken our horizon.  Everywhere, always he confronts us, appearing on the scene to deprive us of the last remnants of good-will left to us in Europe.

In the Scandinavian States, even after 1870, we had preserved certain trusty friendships:  of these William II now tries to rob us.  He appears and, to use his own expression, draws men to him by magic strings.  To the people who are offshoots of Germany he figures as “the Emperor,” unique, mysterious, he who goes forward in the name of the fables of mythology, gathering and uniting anew in his slumbering people the instincts of vassalage.  “Super-German virtues,” he calls them, “ornaments of old-time Germany.”  This monarch who, in his own land, is pleased to pose as a Liberal!

Can it be that this same William who, on the Bosphorus held communion with the stars, who, writing to Bismarck, said, “I talk with God,” finds the celestial responses so inadequate that his mind must needs invoke a retinue of Teutonic deities?

“Let the Latins, Slavs and Gauls know it,” says he, “the German Emperor bears to Germans the glad tidings which promise them the sovereignty of the world!”

Have not even the Anglo-Saxons bowed before the sovereign will of William II, so that before long the island of Heligoland will see the German flag floating over its rocky shores?

Yes, let her Press and public men say what they will, proud Albion has delivered herself over to Germany.  She has made surrender to our enemy in the hope that we shall thus become for her an easier victim, that she will be able to recover at our expense what Germany has taken from her.  Lord Salisbury hopes, in return for the plum he has yielded, to be able to help himself to ours, to those of Italy and Portugal, and to share others with Germany.