4 JANUARY 1913, Page 10

We regret to have to record the death of Herr

von Kiderlen- Waechter, the German Foreign Secretary, which occurred after a brief illness at Stuttgart, where he had gone to spend Christmas. In his early days at the Foreign Office he was intimately associated with the late Herr von Holstein and Prince Philip Eulenburg, and while at Copenhagen con- stantly accompanied the Emperor on his yachting cruises. The cause of his "exile" to Roumania is attributed to an indiscreet despatch which estranged the Emperor, but a recon- ciliation was effected by 1908, and he was already established as a secret adviser to Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg before his formal appointment to the Foreign Secretaryship. Here he was responsible for the negotiations which led to the Franco- German Treaty of February 1909, and, apparently, for the Agadir coup, though it is not certain that it was his idea : and he Buffered in repute from the failure of Germany to satisfy the wishes of her Chauvinists. But in the last year he is generally admitted to have rendered excellent service to the muse of European peace, and in his last important speech in the Reichstag sternly rebuked those who sought to make mischief between England and Germany.