"We are getting on well. If we are not extreme in our claims and do not imagine that we have conquered the world, we shall obtain a peace that is worth having. But we are as easily intoxicated as we are discouraged, and I have the thankless task of pouring water into the foaming wine and of pointing out that we are not alone in Europe, but have three neighbours." Of the three neighbours there was little to fear from England. With the death of Lord Palmerston, English policy had entered on a new phase; the traditions of Pitt and Canning were forgotten; England no longer aimed at being the arbitress of Europe; the leaders of both parties agreed that unless her own interests were immediately affected, England would not interfere in Continental matters. The internal organisation of Germany did not appear to concern her; she was the first to recognise the new principle that the relations of the German States to one another were to be settled by the Germans themselves, and to extend to Germany that doctrine of non-intervention which she had applied to Spain and Italy. Neither France nor Russia would be so accommodating; France, we have already seen, had begun to interfere, Russia would probably do so; if they came to some agreement they would demand a congress; and, as a matter of fact, a few days later the Czar proposed a congress, both in Paris and in London. Of all issues this was the one which Bismarck dreaded most. A war with France he would have disliked, but at the worst he was not afraid of it. But he did not wish that the terms of peace he proposed to dictate should be subjected to the criticism and revision of the European Powers, nor to undergo the fate which fell on Russia twelve years later. Had the congress, however, been supported by Russia and France he must have accepted it. It is for this reason that he was so ready to meet the wishes of France, for if Napoleon once entered into separate and private negotiations, then whatever the result of them might be, he could not join with the other Powers in common action.