This article was followed on the 14th of January by the following explanation, which appeared in the _Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung_:-- “The _Kölnische Zeitung_ of the 10th instant contains an article on the secret history of the Prussian crisis, which it prefaces with the assurance that it has been derived from trustworthy sources. We are unable to say how far this assurance is justified in every particular, but we must contradict the statement that the Imperial Chancellor ever encouraged the opposition against the District Regulations Bill in the Upper House, or that any attempt whatever was made from Varzin to open up communications with the existing Opposition. “After the Upper House had amended certain paragraphs in contradiction to the spirit of the Bill, and to the report of the Lower House, the Prince gave it to be understood that the constitutional procedure should be followed, namely, that the amendments of the Upper House should be dealt with once more in the Lower House, and opposed the idea of closing the session of the Diet after this first hostile vote of the Upper House, and forcing the position by a creation of peers. “It is true that, on the unexpected resolution of the Upper House rescinding its own amendments, the Prince urged strongly that the reform of the Upper Chamber should be taken in hand at once, before proceeding further with the District Regulations Bill, and he still considers this reform to be one of pressing necessity, though it should not take the form of a consultative Council of State, but rather that of a two chamber system, under which the Upper House, however, must strike root and carry weight in the country.” On the 20th of January the same organ went still farther in its comments on the disclosures of the _Kölnische Zeitung_:-- “We have already specified some inaccuracies in this article without entering into a complete contradiction of it. We are now in a position to assert that, in our humble opinion, this article contains about a dozen statements of very doubtful accuracy.... As, however, the Minister President has expressed in the Diet a wish that the discussion of this subject in the press should be brought to a close, and as we do not intend to run counter to a desire uttered in such a quarter, nor care to enter into a polemic with the Rhenish organ, which usually obtains its information from better sources, we forego all further correction of the contents of the article, to which--as we are in a position to state--official circles are entirely foreign.”