• The German Emperor is in many quarters a most
successful diplomatist, but he every now and then uses menace as an instrument with most unsatisfactory results. His threat to treat the Chinese as the Huns treated their enemies caused terrible scenes of needless violence in China, and he has now by an indiscreet speech converted all Poles into bitter enemies. While celebrating on June 5th the restoration of the old Castle of Marienburg, built by the Teutonic Knights, be made a speech which all Poles interpret as a threat that he will carry out in a high-handed way the policy of Germanising his Polish provinces, for which the Reichstag has recently made a large grant of money. His Majesty said :—" Once more it has come to this. Polish arrogance is resolved to encroach upon Germanism, and I am compelled to summon my people to preserve its national possessions. Here in Marienburg I express my expectation that all the brothers of the Order of St. John will always be at my service when I call them to guard German manners and customs." The only " arrogance " the Poles have dis- played, according to Count von Billow, is in producing so many children that they begin even in Germanised districts of Poland to out-number Germans.
