GERMANY'S ASPIRATIONS IN REGARD TO OUR 'FOREIGN POLICY.
[TO THE EDITOR OF VIE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—The admirable article under the above title which appeared in your issue of October 4th deserves the widest circulation. Can you not therefore see your way to republish it in cheap pamphlet form, in order that the people of our Empire may be instructed in the attitude of the German nation towards us ? The facts and reasons which you give should be known to every person in the Empire. If they were known, we might be roused out of our national habit of failing to review the past before we decide in the present, a habit which, in the estimation of not a few, has been conspicuous in our handling of the Chinese question. I recall that at the time when the Marquis of Salisbury resigned the Premiership it was imputed to him as a merit that he had resisted the advances of the Kaiser, and that hopes were expressed then that Mr. Balfour would adhere to his predecessor's wise policy. Your article should strengthen Mr. Balfour's hands, and would certainly have that effect in a greater degree if you could put it within the reach of every one in the Empire. Three incidents which have been narrated to me recently on good authority seem to illustrate the Imperial, official, and mercantile attitude of the German nation towards us. One informant stated that the Kaiser, on hearing that trouble abroad threatened or had overtaken us, exclaimed in the hearing of British military officers: "Thank God ! England will now want any help." Another informant stated that on a certain foreign station the officers deputed to board foreign men-of-war which entered the harbour of a British Colony were usually received with less courtesy by German men-of-war than by the men-of- war of other foreign nations. A third informant stated that in the same Colony some German merchants had declined to refer disputes with native merchants to the local British Tribunals, but had successfully cajoled the native merchants into submitting the points at issue to the resident German Consul-General, notwithstanding the absence of any term to this effect in the contract. I for one wish you every success in your attempt to enlighten and to warn our apathetic. if not ignorant, fellow-countrymen concerning the objects of German policy in its relation to ourselves.—I am, Sir, &e., Qux Vra?
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