The letter to Lord Tweedmouth was a friendly communication dealing with the conditions of the British and German fleets in the past and present, and without a word in it that might not have been published in The Times. It was quite innocent of the sinister significance placed upon it by those who had not seen it; and the British Ministry declined to publish it for entirely different reasons, reasons in no way connected with the German Emperor. As we read The Daily Telegraph interview to-day, it is a plain document. Every word of it is true. The moment one looks at it from the point of view, that the Emperor of Germany is sincerely desirous of an amiable understanding with England, and that he is, for the peace and quiet of the world, working toward that end, there is no adverse criticism to be passed upon it. The English are thoroughly and completely mistaken about the attitude of the German Emperor toward them. He is far and away the best and most powerful friend they have in Europe, and I, for one, would be willing to forgive him were he irritated at their misunderstanding of him. Personally, I have not the shadow of a doubt that had France or Russia treated the German Emperor with the cool distrust shown him by the British, the German army and fleet would have moved ere this. To those who know the Britisher he is forgiven for those luxuries of insular stupidity which punctuate his history. I know what a fine fellow he is, and I pass them by. Mr. Churchill speaks of the German fleet as a "luxury"; but this is only one of those cold-storage impromptus that a reputation for cleverness must keep on hand, and when Lord Haldane in a clumsy attempt to praise the German Emperor speaks of him as "half English" I laugh, as one laughs at the story of fat Gibbon kneeling to propose to a lady and requiring a servant to get him on his legs again. British courting often needs a lackey to keep it on its legs.