“I would have submitted to your Majesty the petition to be relieved of my offices a year ago if I had not been under the impression that your Majesty desired to take advantage of the experience and capacity of a faithful servant of your predecessors. Now that I am assured your Majesty does not require them, I may retire from political life without fearing that public opinion will condemn my decision as untimely. (Signed) “von Bismarck.” At the present stage of international affairs I consider it hazardous to publish the “Draft of confidential statement as to the motives of my retirement from office.” The interest of Germany in keeping it secret for the immediate future seems to me to be greater than the interest of history in its publication now. “NOTES ON MY RETIREMENT. “The Vice-President of the Ministry of State (von Bötticher) declared that he and his colleagues were deeply grieved at my retirement. He had hitherto hoped that the only differences of opinion between his Majesty and myself were connected with home domestic policy, and therefore that the arrangement indicated by me, namely, that I should confine myself to the control of foreign affairs, would prove a satisfactory solution. My withdrawal from all my offices involved incalculable difficulties; and although he could understand my displeasure, he could only beg me urgently to come to a compromise. “I replied: The expedient of withdrawing from the Prussian service and confining myself to the position of Imperial Chancellor had met with objections from the Federal Governments and the Imperial Diet. It is felt to be desirable that the Chancellor should have an official position in which he can control the casting of the Prussian vote; and I, too, could not accept a position in which I should be obliged to take from the Prussian Ministers instructions in the preparation of which I had had no part. Therefore this expedient also would not be free from difficulties. “The Minister of Finance declared that the Order of the 8th of September, 1852, by no means went beyond what was necessary, and could not form an insurmountable difficulty. And also so far as the difficulties in the matter of foreign affairs were concerned, he could only agree with the Minister of State, von Bötticher, that a compromise ought to be sought. Besides, if the retirement took place not for reasons of health, but on political grounds, and from all offices, then the Ministry of State itself would have to consider whether it should not take part in this step. Perhaps that would contribute to avert the fatal event.