The Germans are establishing themselves comfortably and permanently in China. There lies before me an extract from the first number of a newspaper published by the Germans in China under the title of _The German Asiatic Sentinel_. This official organ of the Kiao-chao territory appears every week with six pages of articles and advertisements. It is strange to find in it advertisements of the most diverse description, from that which commends brown Kulmback beer, to that in which two young German merchants seek to correspond, with a view to marriage, with good-looking young German girls of good family. When one remembers the solemn investiture at Kiel of Prince Henry of Prussia, as leader of the crusade which was to spread the sacred words of Christianity amongst the barbarian followers of Confucius, and when one sees this investiture finding its expression in the initiation of the Chinese into the mysteries of Kulmback beer and the search for exportable Gretchens, the association of the two pictures reminds one somehow of tight-rope dancing. But ridicule is unknown in Germany. It seems to me that the Kaiser's latest speech, at the banquet of the provincial Landtag of Brandenburg, is in somewhat doubtful taste. On this occasion, he spoke first of the divine right and responsabilities of the Hohenzollerns on a footing of familiarity with God, and next he compared the functions of a sovereign with those of a gardener, who stirs up the earth, smokes the roots and hunts out noxious insects. True, the German Emperor has got to cultivate the tree of 1870-71 and to destroy "hostile animals," which I take to mean our good simple-minded Frenchmen! The campaign in favour of a _rapprochement_ between France and Germany continues to be cleverly managed and directed in our midst. There is talk of a visit of the Tzar, who would come to Antibes and who would there receive William II at the same time as M. Felix Faure. The formula with which this arrangement is commended to us is "we have sulked long enough." In other words, they would convert a great, strengthening and enduring hatred into a trivial grudge. That, since Fashoda they should regard Sedan as a peccadillo is strange, to say the least of it. The _Kolnische Zeitung_, which opened the discussion with regard to a _rapprochement_ with France, now closes it by observing-- "That if ever the French should feel impelled to seek a reconciliation with Germany, it could only be sincerely effected on the condition that they abandon once and for all the idea of a reckoning to be settled between the two countries for the war of 1870-71."