Count von Billow, Foreign Secretary of Germany, and the only
Minister there who is becoming really great, made a most impressive speech in the Reichstag on Monday in defence of the new proposal to raise £40,000,000 by successive loans, and with the money double the fighting fleet of the Empire. He pointed out that the world was rapidly changing, that no one could predict the results of the war " which has set South Africa in flames," and that Germany was determined that in the event of a fresh partition no one should be able to say to her, " The world is already divided." Germany cannot, he con- tinued, stand aside, and will not be pushed aside. She has a right like England, like France [an odd mistake], to "a Greater Germany." Whether that points to a hope of acquiring territory in Anatolia or South America, Count von Billow did not say, but clearly they are the only countries a share in which might create "a Greater Germany." The Foreign Secretary then dwelt on the extreme suddenness of modern war, and ended by demanding a fleet large enough to make attack upon Germany by sea impossible.
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