It is not difficult to suggest explanations of how the
story of the resignation can be in the main true, and yet the specific story of the British offer be an entire misrepresentation. Suppose M. Delcasse to have said at the Cabinet that he was sure that Britain would help France if Germany sprang at her throat. Suppose, further, that some member of the Cabinet demanded ironically how Britain could help, even granted she were willing to do so. Finally, suppose that M. Delcasse, in order to emphasise his point, gave out of his own head an invasion of . Schleswig-Holstein as an illustration of how Britain could help. That illustration might easily, after passing through several minds, come to be represented as a specific offer of assistance. Of course all this is pure con- jecture, and merely put forth by us to show that, even if the general statements of the .7Jfatin are not denied by those in a position to deny them, there is no reason to believe the Schleswig-Holstein legend.
