Soon news also came from Ballin that the matter was not going well in England: that, according to information received, a dispute had arisen about the agreement; that there was dissatisfaction with Haldane, who, it was said, had let himself be cheated by Tirpitz! This was plain evidence of the indignation felt because Tirpitz had not walked into the trap and simply let the bill drop, and that Haldane had been unable to serve up the bill to the English Cabinet on a platter at tea time. It is useless to say that there was any "cheating" on Germany's part, but the reproach leveled at Haldane justifies the suspicion that his instructions were that _he_ should seek to "cheat" the Germans. Since his fellow countrymen thought that the reverse was true, one can but thank Admiral von Tirpitz most sincerely for having correctly asserted the German standpoint to the benefit of our fatherland. Toward the end of March the fight about the bill took on such violence that finally the Chancellor, on the 22d, asked me for his dismissal as I stepped out of the vault in the Charlottenburg Park. After long consultation and after I had told him Doctor Burchard's view, the Chancellor withdrew his request. When, some time afterward, I paid a visit to Herr von Bethmann in his garden, I found him quite overcome and holding in his hand a message from London. It contained the entire disavowal of the verbal note delivered by Cassel, the withdrawal of the offer of neutrality, as well as of every other offer, and at the end the advice that I dismiss Herr von Bethmann from the Imperial Chancellorship, since he enjoyed to a marked degree the confidence of the British Government! Tears of anger shone in the eyes of the Chancellor, thus badly deceived in his hopes; the praise accorded to him by a foreign government with which Germany and he had just had such painful experiences hurt him deeply. For the second time he offered me his resignation; I did not accept it, but sought to console him. I then ordered that the ambassador in London be asked how he could have accepted and forwarded such a message under any conditions. Now the Chancellor was in favor of the bill, but it was honorably proposed with the limitation which it had been decided to impose upon it in case of the conclusion of the agreement. In England, on the other hand, the full naval construction program was carried out.