In the Times of Saturday last the Berlin correspondent gives
an account of a speech in favour of the Navy Bill made by the German Minister of the Interior which is not a
little significant. He urged that the commercial policy of America and England necessitated an increase in the German Fleet. America, he declared, in spite of the favourable treatment she receives from Germany in the matter of tariffs, had raised her duties in a manner which was in some cases positively prohibitive, and had carried out this increase of tariffs in a manner particularly burdensome for German industry. "England had denounced her treaty with Germany, which rendered it impossible for preferential duties to be imposed in the British Colonies against the German Empire. It was necessary to take account of the possibility that attempts would be made to exclude German goods from the United States and the British Colonial Empire." This would only leave a small portion of the civilised and half- civilised world open to German exports. It was the desire of Germany eventually to be able to assert herself in the remaining portions of the world with forces equal to those of England or America. "That wish," added Count Posadowsky, "is, I believe, justified."
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