We cannot find space to quote at any length from
the German Press, but mast set forth a passage from the Tagliche
Rundschau, one of the two papers which are said to be read daily by the Emperor. It declares that "seldom has any expression of opinion on the part of the German Emperor been received by the German people with more mixed feelings and with greater anxiety and sorrow than this message to the British nation" :— " His Majesty's words show that the Emperor William III. still continues to believe in the efficacy of personal appeals, of desperate efforts to win confidence for his own person and for his pacific aims, and of that policy which sees only the goal but fails to follow the paths by which alone that goal can be attained, which wants to take the whole world under its wing and when it creates unrest and reaps a harvest of mistrust complains that it is always being misunderstood So far this Lohengrin policy' has not brought us a single step forward. It has welded more closely the ties which unite our enemies and has diminished the number of our friends ; it has depressed our prestige like a market quotation and has lessened belief in the earnestness of our purpose and in the seriousness and trustworthiness of our policy. But it may be objected: What harm can this Imperial utterance inflict upon us ? We believe that it has once more lowered con- fidence in our trustworthiness, and that it has increased the difficulties of conducting our foreign policy to such an extent that we by no means envy the task of the responsible statesman whose function it is to defend these utterances."
These are viewa which it will be very difficult for serious men in any country to challenge, and if we could have done so without appearing to write ironically, which is the last thing we desire in this context, we should have liked to express our sympathy with the German Press and people in the situation in which they find themselves.
