"The German Empire to-day is a given factor, which the practical politician is forced to take into consideration. If you look back upon the scenes which took place nearly a year ago in Bucharest on the occasion of the Emperor's birthday, you cannot expect that Germany should meet the Roumanian population with much sympathy. Such incidents have a lasting and estranging influence. Moreover, the continual demonstration of the Roumanians in favour of France cannot but displease Germany, who has lost many thousands of her best sons in a war which was forced upon her against her will. "I am no blind eulogist of Bismarck, but he is indispensable to Germany and Prussia, and aims solely at great ends and means. "He steps courageously over every bound; just as he passed over us in the Spanish question, he has now proved the correctness of his views and his courage in the retirement of Mühler, and in insisting on the School Inspections Bill, which were both fundamentally _opposed_ to the King's wish and opinion. It is easy to understand that he must neglect you in striving for great political aims. "It is not _because_ you are a Hohenzollern, but _in spite_ of your being one, that no consideration could be paid to your name and race in the recent solution of the railway question. "I am convinced that, now that Roumania has regained her international position with glory, the relations with the German Empire will take a more peaceful form. At all events, the advances lie on the shoulders of the smaller and weaker State: that is the ordinary course of events in politics. "For that reason I dislike the following sentence in the report you sent me: 'Because certain capitalists are pleased to put their money into an industrial speculation, is it necessary that it should become a matter for the two Governments? If this principle is admitted, where will it lead?' "The participation, therefore, in a loan guaranteed by the State is called an 'industrial speculation'! Germany, accordingly, is peaceably to allow her subjects to suffer loss through the Roumanian State, and if she complains about such treatment, where should the complaint be addressed if not to the State, that is the Government, which does not act in accordance with its pledges? On the other hand, one might well ask: 'If this principle is admitted, where will it lead?...'