An impression prevails widely in Germany that Prince Bülow's retirement was due to the loss of the Emperor's favour owing to the Prince's attitude towards the monarch during the "November storm." Prince Bülow, very properly, has always refused to say anything about his relations with his royal master, but a lengthy statement he made to a newspaper correspondent referring his resignation to the conduct of the Conservatives, and a letter from the Emperor gratefully thanking the Prince in the warmest terms for his "long and intimate co-operation," and conferring upon him at the same time the highest Order in the Empire, that of the Black Eagle, should be sufficient evidence to disprove the supposition. It is more probable that the Prince was weary of the cares of office and of the strife of party. Moreover, he had, in the state of his health, a strong private reason for retirement. Four years before, on April 5, 1906, he had fallen unconscious from his seat on the ministerial bench during the proceedings in the Reichstag, and although he was back again in Parliament, perfectly recovered, in the following November, the attack was an experience which warned him against too great a prolongation of such heavy work and responsibility as the Chancellorship entails. The retirement of Prince Bülow meant the disappearance of the most notable figure in German political life since the beginning of the century. In ability, wit, and those graces of a refined and richly cultivated mind which have so often distinguished great English statesmen, he was a head and shoulders above any of his fellow-countrymen; while the mere fact that he was able to maintain his position for almost twelve years (he had been, as Foreign Secretary for over two years, the Emperor's most trusted counsellor and the real executive in foreign policy) is a convincing proof of his tact and diplomatic talent, as well as of his statesmanship. His successor, the present Chancellor, Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, is a man of another and very different type. He incorporates the spirit of Prussian patriotism of the most orthodox kind in its worthiest and best manifestations, but as yet he has given no proofs of possessing the breadth of view, the oratorical talent, or the urbanity which distinguished his predecessor. Prince von Bülow's career as a German diplomatist in foreign capitals made him an acute and highly polished man of the world. The present Chancellor has spent all his life within the comparatively narrow confines of Prussian administrative service. It is, of course, too soon to pass final judgment on him as German Prime Minister.