of an irritant sort. Healing by suggestion is a commonplace of modern medicine. Of pungent language, exciting popular alarm in order to facilitate the supply of fresh war-material, both countries have surely had their fill. This "mustard" helped to bring us to the brink of war only last summer. The need

And

now is for "suggestion" of another kind. whether clouds of suspicion and malevolence shall continue to lower, or begin to lift, and gradually to disperse, will immensely depend upon the general tone of "what the papers say" during the next few months. No influence could be so directly and effectively helpful towards improved Anglo-German relations as a high-minded journalistic influence exercised in both countries.

There is plenty of ground for a basis of good feeling. As Sir Frank Lascelles reminds us, the German Empire, since its foundation, has never made war in Europe, though occasion might easily have been found. While, on the other hand, had England intended aggression, she would assuredly not have awaited the recent strengthening of the German fleet, which has given rise to so much ill-feeling over here, but which ought to be regarded as nothing more than the natural fruit of the digestion of Admiral Mahan's doctrine of the necessity of sea-power for every great nation. But, as "Mr. Punch " has recently shown in an apposite cartoon, if German or Briton, just now, do but clean his slate, each takes it that the other cleans that slate " at him!" The preamble to the German Navy Law, which declares that Germany must have a fleet so formidable that even the strongest naval Power would hesitate to attack it,

Р

is no doubt adroit. While perfectly moderate and legitimate in expression, it utilises that scare of the British fleet from which the German suffers perhaps only less than we do from the scare of German invasion. The serious belief in Germany, that we meditated sudden descents on Kiel, or new battles of Copenhagen, sounds preposterous to an Englishman; but it vastly helps the passing of German Naval estimates.

It is this kind of nightmare, engineered in the Dreadnought interest, this gipsy gingering" of the public, to revert to Tolstoi's metaphor,1 which creates bad blood and foments ill-feeling. It is at work on both shores of the North Sea.

For instance, it is widely imagined in England that the Pan-German ambitions affected by a certain noisy section of Junkerdom, represent the solid aim of a homogeneous nation. There exists, too, amongst us, a fearful and wonderful " orbit theory," according to which France is liable to be drawn by the German "orbit" into actual aggression against us; while it is further assumed that Europe generally, in order to gratify its burning desire to take over British possessions, will surmount age-long differences, as well as the awkward problem of dividing the spoil. These vain imaginings can only be classed with such recent exhibits in the German show-case as the assertion that we are about to make an all-British Tariff combine against the world, and to raise a conscript army on a scale equal to European operations; or the outrageous fancy to which no less a man than the Professor of History in Berlin University

1 Cited supra, p. 93.

1

has actually given credence in the words: "We know now that England deliberately planned to fall upon us last summer, without formal declaration of war."

These are but samples of the manifold ingenuity continually being employed in both countries. And why? Mainly lest the subsidence of popular alarm might endanger in England the predominance, and in Germany the increase, of naval strength. It is indeed high time that this precarious and costly game of balancing upon its apex the pyramid of international interests should be exchanged for the sane and simple plan of setting it once more on its safe and proper base of smooth relations.

But if these are to supervene, Germans and Englishmen alike must make a genuine and resolute effort to raise no more spectres, and liberate themselves from the tyranny of fancies and theories. It is simply the facts that both must try to face.

Now after making every allowance for the influence of Press perversions, and other artificial irritants, it is evident that some real ground of grievance with England must exist in the German mind; or resentment could not be so universally felt as it now assuredly is, nor could it have come to be harboured among pacifists and even anti-Prussian Germans.

This full fountain of Resentment seems to be fed by three principal streams of grievance.

1. In German eyes it appears that France and 1 The italics are mine, for nothing could give clearer or sadder evidence of the " highly inflammable state of feeling" now prevalent in Germany against England, than the astonishing fact that a canard of this sort should actually be endorsed by Professor Hans Delbrück, who occupies the Chair once filled by Treitschke; and who, though an ardent patriot, is neither a PanGerman nor a Jingo.

England, for a couple of centuries past, have gone to and fro in the earth picking up all the colonial possessions worth having, until there is little or no room left for German expansion of a similar kind. Yet a fresh million of German babies arrive with regularity every year, for whom must be found food to eat and a place in the sun to occupy. Prima facie, here is something to conjure with. For German growth is great, and its ratio increasing.' But Germany is a wide country, with a wonderful industrial organisation; and there is no evidence of real pressure from over-population. In fact thousands of foreign labourers assist in housing every German harvest. Emigration, moreover, has been considerable, at all events until quite recent years. And the large number of German residents in countries where fewer things are "Verboten " than at home, favours the belief that, even as things now are, German prosperity and happiness are vigorous plants in many lands outside the immediate shelter of the German eagle's wings.

If indeed an accession of colonial territory on which to fly the German flag would finally abate German unrest; if that could be ended by some equitable process of cessions or sales; it would be well worth

1 The population of the German Empire, as at present constituted, was under 25 millions in 1816. În less than ninety years the population of the same area had risen to 61 millions. But it is an eloquent fact that half of this total increase of 36 millions is to be credited to the last third of the period. The increase in the thirty years (1875 to 1905) equals that of the previous sixty years.

2 Over 4 millions, for instance, to the United States in eighty years, (1820 to 1900), and 52,000 to Brazil in thirty years, (1870 to 1900). The average density of population per sq. mile is still exceeded in England, Holland, and Belgium; although the figure rose from 270 in 1900 to 290 in 1905.

the while of other Powers to confer together for its satisfaction; due regard being had to what France has already done in this direction. There is more than one place in the sun where German administration would be a vast improvement on present conditions. From an English point of view, any increase in Germany's oversea possessions, involving an increase of useful occupation for her navy, would wholesomely tend to reduce our rather foolish liability to those invasion scares for which ostensible pretext is found in the recent somewhat feverish activity in German ship-yards.

The present disposition in Germany, however, so far as it is disclosed in the estimates for 1912,1 is to spend more on her army and less upon her fleet. This scarcely bears out the idea that new oversea responsibilities stand first among German ambitions; and it favours the belief that the Colony cry, when raised, is chiefly of oblique utility.2

1 The Naval figures, compared with those for 1911, shew a decrease of £40,000; but the Army figures propose an increase of £2,000,000.

2 Since the above was written, Professor Delbrück has made some observations (published in the Daily Mail of December 27th, 1911) bearing on the same topic. He states that it is a myth to suppose Germany to be land-hungry; that while Germany's total emigration has fallen to about 25,000, hundreds of thousands of immigrant labourers from the East come there every year; that Germany wants markets, not territory; that the mainspring of the German rencontre with France over Morocco was the desire to prevent the closing of the trade door (an invariable occurrence in French Colonial practice) in a country so rich in trade possibilities as the Moroccan Empire.

These statements of the Berlin historical Professor, who edits the leading German Review, and as a publicist ranks second to none in the Fatherland, finally dispose of the idea that German unrest arises from any actual pressure of population. But there are plainly other reasons for the undoubtedly prevalent desire