Peace has been signed between Turkey and Greece, but let us not regard it as a settlement of outstanding questions, for the Ambassadors were only able to come to an agreement by eliminating questions in dispute, one by one.  Germany now appears to dominate the Eastern question to such a degree that, in his Speech from the Throne, William II did not even allude to it.  What would have been the good?  Turkey is already a province of Germany!  William II and his Ambassador are the rulers there and govern the country as sovereigns.  The flood-gate of German emigration, secretly unlocked, will soon be thrown wide open; 200,000 Germans will be able to make their way into the Ottoman Empire every year.  Before long their numbers will tell, they will assert their rights, and the Slav provinces in the Balkans and in Austria will find themselves out off by the flood.

Is Russia beginning to realise that it would have been better for her to protect the Christians against Turkey rather than to allow them to be slaughtered—­that it would have been a more humane and far-seeing policy to defend Greece and Crete instead of abandoning them to the tender mercies of Turco-German policy?  It is over-late to set the clock back and to challenge the pre-eminent control which William II has established over everything in the East.

December 25, 1897. [22]

None but the author of Tartarin and his immortal “departures” could have described for us the setting-forth of Prince Henry of Prussia for China.  The exchange of speeches between William and his brother makes one of the most extravagant performances of modern times, when read in conjunction with the actual facts, reduced by means of the telegraph to their proper proportions, which may be summed up as follows:  Taking up the cause of two German missionaries who have suffered ill-treatment in China, the Emperor of Germany sends an ultimatum to the Son of Heaven, who yields on every point and carries his submission so far that he runs the risk of compromising his relations with other Powers.  Consequently, there is an end of the dispute.  The facts, you see, are simple.  But Prince Henry has made him ready to receive his solemn investiture at the hands of his brother, the Emperor, by going to kiss Prince Bismarck on his forehead and cheek ("forehead and cheek,” as Prince Henry unctuously remarks, “so often kissed by my grandfather, William I").  Next Prince Henry goes to seek the blessing of General Waldersee; then he has himself blessed by his mother, and by his aunt, and later he will go and get blessed by his grandmother, Queen Victoria.  Slowly and solemnly each act and formality is accomplished in accordance with the rites prescribed by William.  The Imperial missionary, the sailor transformed into a sort of bishop, sets forth.  The quest of the pirate-knight is to conquer all China, to become its emperor, to fall upon it, inspired by the God of battles.  What matters it that the Chinese will not resist, that they will fall prostrate before him?  The grandeur of Tartarin’s setting forth has nothing to do with his getting there.