The book—_Imperial Germany_—is by Prince von Bülow, who thus broke the silence he had observed since the day of his retirement. He reviews the political history of the Empire for the past quarter of a century, and points to the path which it ought to follow in the future both at home and abroad. According to the ex-Chancellor, the Germany of to-day can no longer cling to Bismarck’s Continental policy or obey the precepts handed down by him to his successors. She must open out for herself new and broader tracks, corresponding to the progress achieved in the last thirty years. During this period, the population has increased by twenty million souls, and her industry, fostered by an enormous growth in labour-power, has crossed the seas in order to distribute over the entire globe those products which the home markets were no longer capable of absorbing. This vast industrial output has made it necessary to build a mercantile marine, to which more and more units are added every year, and this commercial fleet has brought in its train the construction of an imposing navy. The last-named enterprise was fraught with difficulties; for we could not avoid exciting the jealousy of England, and in order to succeed it was essential to beware of arousing her hostility. England looks with no friendly eye on the rise of a foreign naval power, which might seek one day to contend with her the mastery of the seas. Germany has no intention of issuing such a challenge to England, as the France of Louis XIV. and the United Provinces did in days gone by. Although the German navy has become, in the course of a few years, the second in the world, its sole mission is to watch over German trade and German interests, to see that they are not obstructed in any way. Just as German industry, after being exclusively domestic and national not long since, has become world-wide, so German statesmanship, which was exclusively European in the days of Bismarck—for it then had no other object than to secure for Germany her rightful place in the first rank of Continental Powers—has likewise been raised to a world-wide plane. Prince von Bülow is careful to insist upon the purely defensive rôle that the Imperial fleet has marked out for itself, and, in order to reassure us as to the peaceful aims of the new statesmanship, he quotes the following passage from a speech made by him in the Reichstag on 6th November 1906: “It is the duty of our generation to uphold our position on the Continent, which is the basis of our international position; to protect our interests abroad; and to pursue a sober, judicious, and far-sighted international policy, limited in such a way that the safety of the German people shall incur no risks and the future of the nation shall not be jeopardized.”