If we look about us we can see how in the last few years the face of all the world has been changed. Old world empires are disappearing and new ones are arising. Nations have appeared among the peoples and are taking their place in the competition--nations which previously the layman had scarcely noticed. Events which change the whole field of international relationships and the whole field of our national economy, and which formerly were accomplished only in the course of centuries, now take place in a few months. Through this fact the tasks of the German Empire and the German people have grown greatly in extent and demand from me and my government extraordinary and serious efforts. They can be crowned with success only if the Germans stand behind us firmly united and give up their party divisions. But our people must make up their minds to make sacrifices. Above all things, it must give up the attempt to find the highest by dividing itself more and more sharply into parties. It must cease to put the party above the good of the nation. It must put a check upon its old hereditary failing to make everything the occasion of unrestrained criticism, and it must realize the boundaries which its own vital interests draw for it. For it is precisely these old political sins which are now being visited upon our interests on the sea and upon our fleet. I insistently requested and warned that it must be strengthened in the first eight years of my reign, and if these requests had not been continually refused, and refused in ways which heaped scorn and ridicule upon me, we would have been able to advance our growing trade and our oversea interests far differently. But my hopes that the German will choose the manlier way have not yet disappeared, for in him love of the Fatherland is great and powerful. The October fires which to-day he lights upon the hills and by which he celebrates the noble figure of the Emperor[27] who was born on this day bear eloquent witness to this fact. [27] Frederick III.