The Times in its first leader confirms this statement, and
declares that the letter quoted above will cause a shock of painful surprise and just indignation to the people of this country. The German Emperor, it points out, bolds the • honorary rank of Admiral of the Fleet, " but if that compli- mentary title is held to warrant a foreign potentate in inter- fering in our domestic affairs by secret appeals to the head of a department on which the national safety depends, all that can be said is that the abolition of dynastic compliments of this kind is an urgent necessity." The Times goes on to ask what Pitt or Palmerston at the head of the Navy would have done if be had been approached in this manner by a foreign • potentate. " Would he have waited for pressure from outside before laying such a communication before Parliament ? ", The Times leader very properly goes on to say that if the German Emperor " has anything to say to this country that may tend to a fair understanding about armaments, he has
• regular and official channels of communication with His Majesty's Government." "It may be said," continues the . leader, "though we hope for the credit of British statesman- ship it will not be said, that the Imperial letter is private. There is no privacy in a matter of this kind." The article ends with the declaration that "the lesson for this country is plain. If there was any doubt before about the meaning of German naval expansion, none can remain after an attempt of this kind to influence the Minister responsible for our Navy in direction favourable to German interests; an attempt, in other words, to make it more easy for German preparations to over. take our own."
