How right Monsieur Conty was Monsieur Caillaux himself was obliged to admit nearly a year later when in the Senate he said: “I do not deny that the rupture of the Franco-German partnership in Cameroon and the Congo had diplomatic consequences.” Unfortunately at this time (March 1911) the principal pre-occupation of the Monis Cabinet was its desire to break away from the policy of the Cabinet of Monsieur Briand to which, logically, it should have adhered. Monsieur Caillaux was credited at the time with one of those famous epigrammatic outbursts of his which have done him harm on various occasions, when, as this one must be, they are quoted against him. “We really can’t have Briand’s policy mounted in diamonds and wear it as a scarfpin,” Monsieur Caillaux is reported to have said. The epigram, whether he made it or not—and I believe that he did make it—expresses very neatly—far too neatly—the chief motive which underlay the policy of the Monis Cabinet at that time, and which was the main cause of that Cabinet’s stubborn opposition to the advice of Monsieur Conty and the advice of the President of the Republic himself. On March 29, in spite of an eloquent and perfectly constitutional warning from Monsieur Fallières at a Cabinet Council, the Colonial Minister in the Monis Cabinet, Monsieur Messimy, was instructed to declare the consortium in Cameroon and the Congo arrangement impossible. He made this declaration before the Budget committee at the end of March and to the Chamber of Deputies on April 4. On April 3, the French Government learned of serious trouble in Morocco. Several tribes were rising, and military intervention became inevitable. German irritation was growing. The German object, or at all events one of Germany’s main objects, in the discussions and negotiations which began in 1909 and broke off so suddenly and so dangerously in 1911 had been to ensure a German share in the public works which were becoming needful in Morocco. Germany had received as the price of a concession to France an assurance that this share would be granted. In the secret letter, which I have mentioned already, Germany admitted the pre-eminence of French interests in Morocco, and approved the constitution of a society of public works in which the German share of capital was to be much smaller than the French share. When the Monis-Caillaux-Cruppi Cabinet took the reins in France, the German Government asked the French Government to intervene semi-officially so that the promised interests of the German shareholders should be properly protected. The French Government refused. Such intervention would be equivalent, it was explained, to admitting privilege or monopoly, and such an admission was against all Radical principles.