of bureaucratic extravagance and excessive rates and taxes; who would reflect on the lesson of history that the greatest of nations depends far more on moral principles and traditional institutions than on experimental legislation and statutory laws; who would therefore steadfastly follow the pronouncement of the American Government that production is conditioned upon the safety of life, the recognition by firm guarantees of private property, the sanctity of contract, and the rights of free labour; who would also realize that the present crisis is a time for order before progress, and that the Armistice ought to have been followed not by blundering reconstruction but by wise reversion to Britain as it was before the war; any good citizen, I say, chosen for these purposes after an election, would not only be a more trustworthy Prime Minister than Mr. Lloyd George and the little Lloyd Georges who hang about him, but also have good grounds of hope to become the saviour of the nation by Conservatism. Corpus Christi College, Oxford, March 16, 1922.

VI

LETTERS ON FOREIGN POLICY

GERMANY'S TRADITIONAL POLICY

On December 29, 1895, Dr. L. S. Jameson with 500 men crossed the Transvaal frontier from British Bechuanaland near Mafeking. On January 1-2, 1896, he and his men were driven back and captured by Boer forces at Doornkop. On January 3 the German Government sent the celebrated telegram, signed by the Emperor William II, to President Kruger, congratulating him on the defeat of the Raiders without appealing for help to friendly Powers'. This produced a very tense situation between Germany and Great Britain, but Lord Salisbury, Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, managed to close the incident by diplomacy. The telegram, which some people thought to be a momentary lapse by the Emperor, but which recently published documents prove to have been a calculated act of the German Government, was the occasion of the following letter of Case.

Frederick William III was King of Prussia from 1797 to 1840. He and Alexander I of Russia had been allies in the War of Liberation against Napoleon in 1813-14.

In 1870, during the Franco-German War, the Prussian Government acquiesced in Russia's repudiating the international treaty (or clause of treaty) which had declared the Black Sea to be neutralized (Treaty of Paris, 1856). A Conference of London, 1871, consented subsequently to Russia's repudiation.

In 1878, at the end of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-–8, Bismarck was President of the Congress of Berlin, when the Kingdom of Bulgaria was called into existence. In 1885 Bulgaria added to itself the nominally Turkish province of Eastern Rumelia.

The German Empire, created by Bismarck at the close of the FrancoGerman War in 1871, had remained on good terms with Russia, but had insured against a possible Russian war by making the Austro-German Alliance in 1879. This treaty of alliance was kept secret; but on February 3, 1888, at a moment when Russo-German relations were uneasy, Bismarck published the Austro-German Treaty as a warning. Three days later Bismarck made the great speech, which Case alludes to, in the Reichstag. It was a complete review of the foreign policy of the German Empire, and is considered the greatest speech that Bismarck ever made.

FROM The Times, JANUARY 9, 1896.

The present attitude of Germany to England is not a mere humour of the moment, nor entirely a result of colonial jealousy, nor altogether an explosion of long-cherished animosity on account of our insularity and supposed selfishness and self-aggrandizement: it is all these; but it is also connected with a traditional policy, which may be briefly described as the conciliation of Russia at the expense of England. The great danger to Germany being her position between France and Russia, her first idea is to detach the latter. In itself, this end is nothing to England. But, as a means, Germany pursued the constant policy of protecting her own frontier by allowing Russia freedom in the East, and by this means becomes a difficulty to England in an Eastern crisis, and a greater and more lasting danger in Europe and Asia than in the Transvaal.

The famous speech of Prince Bismarck to the Reichstag on February 6, 1888, is the text and commentary for this traditional policy. He first admitted that a Russian meant a French war. He did not, however, believe that Russia in 1888 was massing her troops near the German frontier for this hostile purpose. 'Russia', he said, 'awaits a new Eastern crisis.' Having recalled four Eastern crises in this century-in 1809, 1828, 1854, 1877-he predicted that the next would come about 1899. He added that Germany would not be primarily interested in it, but would wait until the Powers most concerned, those in the Mediterranean and the Levant, had made up their minds either to agree with Russia or to fight her. Here are two points for our reflection. Prince Bismarck foresaw then the cloud which we descry now by its first shadows in Armenia; and his plan evidently was to divert Russia by giving her scope in this coming Eastern crisis.

He further represented the conciliation of Russia as the traditional policy of Germany. During the reign of Frederick William III', he said, 'Prussia frequently showed her gratitude for the benefits which she had received from Alexander I in 1813.' In particular, he quoted her neutral attitude in the Crimean War'. În the same spirit, he boasted that in 1870 Germany was able to requite Russia for her friendly neutrality by services in the Treaty of London relating to the Black Sea, and that, at the Berlin Congress, he was almost a plenipotentiary of Russia. Russia', he also said, ' has certainly every reason to be grateful for the loyal attitude of Germany in the Bulgarian question. If Russia calls upon us to support, in our communications with the Sultan's Government, such of her claims as are compatible with the decisions of the Berlin Congress, I should have no hesitation in doing so.'

The whole speech meant that it has been, is, and will be the traditional policy of Germany to divert Russia by favouring her designs in Eastern affairs, and at the expense of England. Nor did this policy fall with Prince Bismarck. As he learnt it so he taught it to the present Emperor, who, within six months after his Chancellor's speech and directly after his own accession opened the Reichstag on June 25, 1888, with a speech in which he pointedly declared that the Austrian alliance permitted him to cultivate carefully his personal friendship with the Emperor of Russia and the peaceful relations which have existed for the past 100 years with the neighbouring Russian Empire. The result is that William II is now, at this moment, pursuing the traditional policy which he has inherited from King Frederick William III and learnt from Prince Bismarck.

In order to prove this interpretation of his attitude I cannot do better, Sir, than quote the words of your

Correspondent in Vienna from The Times of yesterday as follows:

'In the recent co-operation of the Powers at Constantinople ' it was never for a moment doubted in diplomatic circles that Germany's reserve was intended to please Russia at the expense of England. It was well known that Russia was not satisfied that any other Power but herself should take the lead of European action in the East, and that is why Germany constantly hung back and did not send her ships to • Turkish waters during the recent crisis. In the present instance, again, Germany's proceedings are entirely consistent with that policy. Her object, evidently, is to entangle Great 'Britain in South Africa and thus to make it impossible for the Queen's Government to exercise influence in Oriental affairs....Russia would thus be relieved of all concern as to 'opposition on the part of England in the accomplishment of 'her Eastern policy.'

It would no doubt be going too far to conclude that the sole object of the Emperor William's message to President Kruger is to hamper England's action in the East, or to make her forget Germany's colonial aspirations in Africa. On the other hand it would be a still greater mistake to ignore either the consistency or the connexion between the patronage of the Transvaal and the conciliation of Russia, which are both at the expense of England. The greatest mistake of all would be to allow Germany's colonial jealousy, which is hardly more than an annoyance, to distract our attention from the more real danger of Germany's general policy. We are on the brink of the fifth Eastern crisis of the century predicted by Prince Bismarck-a crisis in which we shall have to reckon with France as well as with Russia; a crisis in which we must assure ourselves that Germany will continue her traditional policy of saving herself from being crushed between France and Russia by conciliating Russia at the expense of England. Oxford, Jan. 7.

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