I then took up an argument which, it is understood, has had much influence with the Emperor,--namely, that arbitration must be in derogation of his sovereignty,--and asked, "How can any such derogation be possible? Your sovereign would submit only such questions to the arbitration tribunal as he thought best; and, more than all that, you have already committed yourselves to the principle. You are aware that Bismarck submitted the question of the Caroline Islands for arbitration to the Pope, and the first Emperor William consented to act as arbiter between the United States and Great Britain in the matter of the American northwestern boundary. How could arbitration affect the true position of the sovereign? Take, for example, matters as they now stand between Germany and the United States. There is a vast mass of petty questions which constantly trouble the relations between the two countries. These little questions embitter debates, whether in your Reichstag on one hand, or in our Congress on the other, and make the position of the Berlin and Washington governments especially difficult. The American papers attack me because I yield too much to Germany, the German papers attack Von Bulow because he yields too much to America, and these little questions remain. If Von Bulow and I were allowed to sit down and settle them, we could do so at short notice; but behind him stands the Reichstag, and behind our Secretary of State and myself stands the American Congress." I referred to such questions as the tonnage dues, the additional tariff on bounty-promoted sugar, Samoa, the most-favored-nation clause, in treaties between Germany and the United States, in relation to the same clause in sundry treaties between the United States and other powers, and said, "What a blessing it would be if all these questions, of which both governments are tired, and which make the more important questions constantly arising between the two countries so difficult to settle, could be sent at once to a tribunal and decided one way or the other! In themselves they amount to little. It is not at all unlikely that most of them--possibly all of them--would be decided in favor of Germany; but the United States would acquiesce at once in the decision by a tribunal such as is proposed. And this is just what would take place between Germany and other nations. A mass of vexatious questions would be settled by the tribunal, and the sovereign and his government would thus be relieved from parliamentary chicanery based, not upon knowledge, but upon party tactics or personal grudges or inherited prejudices." He seemed now more inclined to give weight to these considerations, and will, I hope, urge his government to take a better view than that which for some time past has seemed to be indicated by the conduct of its representatives here.