DEAR FRIEND,—­I hear that you do not approve of the delegation of Socialists for Stockholm.  To begin with, it is not a delegation.  The men came to me of their own accord and applied for permission to travel, which I granted.  Adler, Ellenbogen and Seitz were there, Renner as well.  The two first are capable men, and I value them in spite of the differences that exist between us.  The two last are not well known to me.  But all are genuinely desirous of peace, and Adler in particular does not wish the downfall of the Empire.

If they secure peace it will be a socialistic one, and the Emperor will have to pay out of his own pocket; I am sure too, dear friend, that if it is not possible to end the war, the Emperor will have to pay still more; you may be sure of that.

Or, as may be expected, if they do not secure peace, then my prediction was all the more correct, for then I shall have proved to them that it is not the inefficiency of the Diplomatic Service but the conditions surrounding it that must be blamed for the war not coming to an end.

  If I had refused to grant permission for them to travel, they
  would have continued to the last declaring that, if they had been
  allowed to proceed, they would have secured peace.

Everyone is indignant with me here, particularly in the Herrenhaus.  They even go so far that they imagine I had tried to “buy” the Socialists by promising to lower the Customs dues if they returned with peace.  I do not want the dues, as you know, but that has no connection with Stockholm, “Sozie” and peace.

I was at an Austrian Cabinet Council lately and gave the death-blow to the Customs dues—­but I felt rather like Daniel in the lions’ den when I did it; N. and E. in particular were very indignant.  The only one who entirely shares my standpoint beside Trnka is the Prime Minister Clam.

  Consequently, this contention that they have been deprived of the
  octroi owing to my love for the “Sozies” angers them still more,
  but the contention is false.

You, my dear friend, are doubly wrong.  In the first place, we shall be forced to have Socialist policy after the war whether it is welcome or not, and I consider it extremely important to prepare the Social Democrats for it.  Socialist policy is the valve we are bound to open in order to let off the superfluous steam, otherwise the boiler will burst.  In the second place, none of us Ministers can take upon ourselves the false pretence of using sabotage with regard to peace.  The nations may perhaps tolerate the tortures of war for a while, but only if they understand and have the conviction that it cannot be otherwise—­that a vis major predominates; in other words, that peace can fail owing to circumstances, but not owing to the ill will or stupidity of the Ministers.

The German-Bohemian Deputy, K.H.