But although for years I and some few others had been preaching the imminence of this danger which no diplomatic arguments could exorcize, the bulk of the British nation hoped on, refusing to impute to the German people the motives or the aims which we knew it entertained. In the _Contemporary Review_[3] I was attacked by the celebrated Professor Hans Delbrück for affirming, as I have done for over twenty years, that Germany was concentrating all her efforts on the coming struggle between herself and this country, and the learned Professor did me the honour to say that so long as I was allowed to express my views on foreign politics in the _Contemporary Review_ there would and could be no entente between Great Britain and Germany. “As long as Mr. Dillon is permitted,” this German Professor and successor of Treitschke wrote, “to set forth in the _Contemporary Review_ his fantastic views, engendered by hatred and suspicion, about German policy, all those will be working in vain who believe that peace between our nations can be secured by arbitration treaties.”[4] I then summed up my opinions as follows: When I read the smooth-tongued, plausible panegyrics on Germany’s politics, which are served up to us here in England every year, and contrast them with the systematic aggressiveness which everybody with open eyes and ears sees and hears in Berlin, I behold Germany rise before me in the form of a cuttlefish, with many lasso-like arms, ever ready to seize their unsuspecting prey, and also ready, when itself is in danger, to shed an ink-like fluid which blackens the water and hinders effective pursuit. Everything that has come to pass since then offers a pointed illustration of that presentment. The attempt to obtain without a war a return for her outlay on her army and navy by calling for coveted territory as a propitiatory sacrifice was energetically made during the Morocco crisis. But the spring of the Panther failed of its purpose. Germany’s further experiences during the London Conference were likewise discouraging. The loose ranks of the Entente Powers closed up at the approach of herself and her ally, and Albania proved a mere torso. Then the supreme effort was put forth a few weeks back, and the Berlin Government, alive to the possibility of a like unfruitful result, determined to abide by and prepare for the extreme consequences, which, sooth to say, appeared to them less formidable than they really were. Congruously with this resolve every precautionary measure that prudence prompted or circumstance suggested was adopted betimes, some secret, others public. For the behoof of the European public the former were flatly denied, and the latter glibly explained away.