The Foreign Office was largely influenced by the axiom: "No disagreeable quarrels with other powers"--"surtout pas d'histoires" ("above all, no yarns"), as the French general said to a company of soldiers which, he had heard, wished to mutiny. One of the Secretaries of State told me once when, in placing some matter before me, I had called his attention to the apparently serious situation in connection with some foreign question, that this simply must be righted, that the Foreign Office based its acts primarily upon the maxim: "Let us have quiet." Given this attitude, one can also understand the answer which the German representative gave to a German merchant in a South American republic who had asked him for help and intercession with the authorities, since his shop had been plundered and his property stolen: "Oh, don't bother me with these things! We have established such pleasant relations with this republic; any action undertaken in your behalf would only serve to upset them." I need scarcely add that whenever such a conception of duty came to my attention I removed the official concerned from his post. The Foreign Office enjoyed general unpopularity both among the people and in the army. I worked continuously, during the tenure of office of various Chancellors, for thorough reform, but in vain. Every new Chancellor, especially if he himself did not come from the ranks of the foreign service, needed the Foreign Office in order to work himself into foreign affairs, and this took time. But once he had worked himself in he was under obligation to the officials, and was reluctant to make extensive changes, burdened as he was by other matters and lacking detailed knowledge regarding the Foreign Office personnel, particularly as he still believed that he needed the advice of those who were "orientated." DEVELOPMENT OF TSING-TAO But let us return to Tsing-tao. Here everything was done to promote commerce and industry, and done jointly with the Chinese; the flag of the Chinese Empire, moreover, was hoisted over the Custom House at Tsing-tao. The development there was such that the port, during the years immediately preceding the war, ranked sixth among all Chinese trading centers in the commercial register of the great Chinese merchants and of the merchants' guild coming just after Tientsin. Tsing-tao was a prospering German commercial colony, where many Chinese worked side by side with Germans; it was, so to speak, a great sample warehouse of German abilities and German achievements, to which the Chinese, who formerly had not known Germany, her capabilities of achievement, or her products, could repair for selection and emulation; it was a contrast to the naval stations of Russia and England, which were purely military, directed solely toward domination and conquest.