It may be said in answer to this same argument that this building and training and enriching of a nation are a threat in themselves. True, a strong man is more dangerous than a weak one; but it is equally true that a strong man is a greater safeguard than a weak one where the question of peace is at stake. It is also true that a rich and powerful man must needs take more precautions against attack and robbery than a tramp. A tramp seldom carries even a bunch of keys, and pays no premium on fire, accident, or burglary insurance. William the Second knows his history as well as any of his people, and incomparably better than his English, French, or American critics. He knows that only twenty years after the death of Frederick the Great, the Prussian power went down before Napoleon like a house of cards, and that the country's humiliation was stamped in bold outlines when Napoleon was received in Berlin with the ringing of bells, the firing of cannons, and he himself greeted as a savior and a benefactor. That was only a hundred years ago. Is it an indiscretion, then, when the present ruler, speaking at Brandenburg the 5th of March, 1890, says: "I look upon the people and nation handed on to me as a responsibility conferred upon me by God, and that it is, as is written in the Bible, my duty to increase this heritage, for which one day I shall be called upon to give an account; those who try to interfere with my task, I shall crush"? On his accession to the throne his first two proclamations were to the army and the navy, his third to the people. On the 14th of July, 1888, he reviewed the fleet at Kiel, and for the first time an Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia appeared there in the uniform of an admiral. In April, 1897, Queen Victoria celebrated the sixtieth year of her reign, and Prince Henry represented Germany, appearing as admiral of the fleet in an old battle-ship, the King William. On the 24th of April the Emperor telegraphed to his brother: "I regret exceedingly that I cannot put at your disposition for this celebration a better ship, especially when all other countries are appearing with their finest ships of war. It is a sad consequence of the manoeuvring of those unpatriotic persons who have obstructed the construction of even the most necessary war-ships. But I shall know no rest till I have placed our navy on a par for strength with our army." From that day to this he has gone steadily forward demanding of his people a strong army and a powerful fleet. He now has both. He has pulled Germany out of danger and beyond the reach, for the moment at least, of any repetition of the catastrophe and humiliation of a hundred years ago. This is a solid fact, and for this situation the Emperor is largely, one might almost say wholly, responsible.