Bethmann-Hollweg did not talk politics until towards the end of dinner. The conversation drifted to King Edward’s visit to the Russian Czar at Réval. That visit had caused a great ferment in Germany, and grave suspicions of British intentions. Bethmann-Hollweg voiced those suspicions in the frankest manner. “You are trying to encircle us!” he cried to Mr. Lloyd George. “You and France and Russia are attempting to strangle us!” Mr. Lloyd George assured him of the friendliness of Great Britain towards all the great Powers; but for the moment he refused to be appeased. He thumped the table with his hand. “The Prussian Government has only to lift a finger,” he cried, “and every living Prussian will die for the Fatherland!” Mr. Lloyd George listened to all this with his characteristic calmness and good-humour. “But what about the other Germans?” he put in at this point. A shadow passed over the face of the Prussian Minister. “Oh! they?” he said with a gesture. “They, too, will come along!” But this was only a flash. On the whole, Bethmann-Hollweg was very friendly; and the facts of his family life showed him Anglophile. He had sent his son to an English University; and admiration for English education was, curiously enough, just at that moment almost as much a fashion in Germany as admiration for German education in England. When we were lunching with a judge at Frankfort Mr. Lloyd George discovered that the daughter of the house had actually been at school along with his own daughter at the famous English girls’ school near Brighton—Roedean. Of course, it is always foolish to imagine that social courtesies seriously affect the grave pursuit of national interests in any country. But they produce a friendly atmosphere; and he would be a criminal who, with all the causes of difference and conflict in the world, did not always try to improve the human atmosphere. The people of Hamburg were remarkably friendly to us. The merchants trading with England gave us an especially enthusiastic reception. They feasted us at a banquet at which sat the Hamburg Prussian Minister—for Berlin keeps a Ministry in the “Free Towns” as a last relic of their former independence. It was on the occasion of that banquet that Mr. Lloyd George threw out the idea of regulating armaments by a Plimsoll “Load-line” fixed according to population. It is strange to-day to remember with what enthusiasm that suggestion was received by the Hamburg merchants. The authorities of Hamburg provided a launch to take us into every corner of their famous port, so as to show us all the power and pride of their new creation—with all its marvellous up-to-date devices for handling ships and cargoes, its wonderful new docks and elevators, its ingenious and multifarious resources for expediting sea-traffic. It was good to see that port; if only to realise the wisdom of the King’s advice to us at home—“Wake up, Britain!”