Germany was going ahead with giant strides in commerce and industry, but we had not the slightest title to be jealous or to complain when she was only reaping the fruits of her own science and concentration on peaceful arts.  I had said this myself emphatically to the Emperor at Berlin in 1906 in a conversation the record of which has already been given.  There was no responsible person in this country who dreamt, either in 1914 or in the years before then, of interfering with Germany’s Fleet development merely because it could protect her growing commerce.  What responsible people did object to was the method of those who belonged to the Tirpitz school.  The peace was to be preserved; I give that school full credit for this desire; but preserved on what terms?  On the terms that the German was to be so strong by land and sea that he could swagger down the High Street of the world, making his will prevail at every turn.

But this was not the worst, so far as England was concerned.  The school of von Tirpitz would not be content unless they could control England’s sea power.  They would have accepted a two-to-three keel standard because it would have been enough to enable them to secure allies and to break up the Entente.  Now it was vital to us that Germany should not succeed in attaining this end.  For if she did succeed in attaining it, not only our security from invasion, but our transport of food and raw materials, would be endangered.  With a really friendly Germany or with a League of Nations the situation would have mattered much less.  It was the policy of the school to which Tirpitz and the Emperor himself belonged which made the situation one of growing danger and the Entente a necessity, for these were days when other nations near us were beginning to organize great battle-fleets.  If Bethmann Hollweg’s policy had prevailed there would have been no necessity for any such Entente as was the only way of safety for us.  But he could not carry his policy through, earnestly tho he desired to do so, and thus provide the true way to permanent peaceful relations.  I think he believed that the only use Britain ever contemplated making of her Navy, should peace continue, was that of a policeman who co-operates with others in watching lest anyone should jostle his neighbor on the maritime highway.  He believed in the Sittlichkeit, which we here mean when we speak of “good form.”  But that was not the faith of his critics in Berlin.  They wanted to have Russia, and if possible France also, along with their navies, on the side of Germany.  Peace, yes, but peace compelled by fear—­a very unwholesome and unstable kind of peace, and deadly for the interests of an island nation.  Hence the Entente!