As evidence of the desire on the part of the Emperor and his Government for a friendly arrangement with England may be quoted the statement made in December, 1910, by the German Chancellor, Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, to the following effect:—­

“We also meet England in the desire to avoid rivalry in regard to armaments, and non-binding pourparlers, which have from time to time taken place, have been conducted on both sides in a friendly spirit.  We have always advanced the opinion that a frank and sincere interchange of views, followed by an understanding with regard to the economic and political interests of the two countries, offers the surest means of allaying all mistrust on the subject of the relations of the Powers to each other on sea and land.”

The Chancellor went on to explain that this mistrust had manifested itself “not in the case of the Governments, but of public opinion.”

With regard, in particular, to a naval understanding between England and Germany, Chancellor von Buelow, in a Budget speech in March, 1909, declared that up to that time no proposals regarding the dimensions of the fleets or the amount of naval expenditure which could serve as a basis for an understanding had been made on the side of England, though non-binding conversations had taken place on the subject between authoritative English and German personalities.  In March last year (1912) such proposals may be said to have been made in the form of a suggestion by Sir Edward Grey during the Budget debate that the ratio of 16 to 10 (i.e., 50 per cent. more and 10 per cent. over) should express the naval strength of the two countries.  The suggestion was “welcomed” by Admiral von Tirpitz on behalf of Germany in February, 1913.  And there the matter rests.

A perhaps inevitable result of the tension between England and Germany during the period under consideration has been the amount of mutual espionage discovered to be going on in both countries.  An incident that attracted wide attention was the arrest in 1910 of Captains Brandon and Trench, the former of whom was arrested at Borkum and the latter at Emden.  They were tried before the Supreme Court at Leipzig, and were both sentenced to incarceration in a fortress for four years.  Many other arrests, prosecutions, and sentences have taken place both in England and Germany since then, with the consequence that English travellers in Germany and German travellers in England, particularly where the travellers are men of military bearing and are in seaside regions, are now liable, under very small provocation, to a suspicion of being spies.  An English lady recently made the acquaintance of a German in England.  He was a very nice man, she said, and went on to relate how they were talking one day about Ireland.  She happened to mention Tipperary.  “Oh, I know Tipperary,” the German officer said; “it is in my department.”  “It was a revelation to me,” the lady concluded when repeating the conversation to her friends.  As a matter of fact, the Intelligence Departments of the army in both Germany and England are well acquainted with the roads, hills, streams, forts, harbours, and similar details of topography in almost all countries of the world besides their own.