Thus in the official apology for Germany it is stated that, in spite of the refusal of Austria to accept the proposition of Sir Edward Grey to treat the Servian reply "as a basis for further conversations," we [Germany] continued our mediatory efforts to the utmost and _advised_ Vienna to make any possible compromise consistent with the dignity of the Monarchy.[3] [Footnote 3: German _White Paper_.] This would be more convincing if the German Foreign Office had added the _text_ of the advice which it thus gave Vienna. A like significant omission will be found when the same official defense states that on July 29th the German Government advised Austria "to begin the conversations with Mr. Sazonof." But here again the _text_ is not found among the documents which the German Foreign Office has given to the world. The communications, which passed between that office and its ambassadors in St. Petersburg, Paris, and London, are given _in extenso_, but among the twenty-seven communications appended to the German _White Paper it is most significant that not a single communication is given of the many which passed from the Foreign Office of Berlin to that of Vienna and only two which passed from the German Ambassador in Vienna to the German Chancellor_. While the Kaiser has favored the world with his messages to the Czar and King George, he has wholly failed to give us any message that he sent in those critical days to the Austrian Emperor or the King of Italy. We shall have occasion to refer hereafter to the frequent failure to produce documents, the existence of which is admitted by the exhibits which Germany appended to its _White Paper_. This cannot be an accident. The German Foreign Office has seen fit to throw the veil of secrecy over the text of its communications to Vienna, although professing to give the purport of a few of them. The purpose of this suppression is even more clearly indicated by the complete failure of Austria to submit any of its diplomatic records to the scrutiny of a candid world. Until Germany and Austria are willing to put the most important documents in their possession in evidence, they must not be surprised that the World, remembering Bismarck's garbling of the Ems dispatch, which precipitated the Franco-Prussian War, will be incredulous as to the sincerity of their pacific protestations. ADDENDUM