Many years later, on my return from Lowther Castle, where I had been hunting with Lord Lonsdale, I was invited to dine with Lord Rosebery, the great Liberal statesman and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, also known through his researches in the history of Napoleon, at his beautiful country estate of Dalmeny Castle, situated close to the sea, not far from the great Forth bridge. Among the guests was General Sir Ian Hamilton, a Scotchman, well known on account of his part in the Boer War, with whom I had become acquainted when he was a guest at the Imperial German maneuvers, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and a captain of the English navy, who was commander of the naval station there. The last sat next Admiral Freiherr von Senden, directly across the table from me, and attracted my attention by the obvious embarrassment which he manifested in his talk with the Admiral, which he conducted in a low voice. After dinner Admiral von Senden introduced the captain to me, whereat the Englishman's embarrassment caused him to behave even more awkwardly than before, and aroused my attention because of the worried look of his eyes and his pale face. After the conversation, which turned on various maritime topics, had come to an end, I asked Freiherr von Senden what the matter was with the man; the Admiral laughed and replied that he had elicited from his neighbor, during the meal, that he had been the commander of the ship which had captured the two German steamers in the Boer War, and that he had been afraid that I might find this out. Senden had thereupon told him that he was entirely mistaken about this; that had His Majesty learned who he was he could rest assured that he would have been very well treated and thanked into the bargain. "Thanked? What for?" queried the Englishman. "For having made the passage of the Naval law so much easier for the Emperor!" One of the prime considerations in the passage of the Naval law--as also for all later additions, and, in general, for the whole question of warship construction--was the question whether the German shipbuilding industry would be in a position to keep pace with the naval program; whether, in fact, it would be able to carry it out at all. Here, too, Admiral von Tirpitz worked with tireless energy. Encouraged and fired with enthusiasm by him, the German shipbuilding yards went at the great problem, filled with German audacity, and solved it with positively brilliant results, greatly distancing their foreign competitors. The admirable technical endowment of the German engineers, as well as the better education of the German working classes, contributed in full measure toward this achievement. FEVERISH HASTE FOR NAVY