"ENGLAND IS MAD."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13926, 7 December 1908, Page 6

"ENGLAND IS MAD."

KAISER'S DECLARATION.

REMARKABLE STATEMENTS.

THE BLACK BOER WAR.

[FROM OCR own correspondent.]

London, October 30. Thk Daily Telegraph, on Wednesday, published from an "unimpeachable source, the substance of a conversation which a correspondent had had recently with the German Emperor. His Majesty, speaking . with "impulsive and unusual 'frankness," said: —"You English are mad, mad. mad as March hares. What has come over you that, you are so completely given _over to suspicions quite unworthy of a great nation? What more can Ido than I have done? 1 declared with all tho emphasis at my command, in my speech at Guildhall, that my heart is set upon peace, and that it is one of my dearest wishes to live on the best of terms with England. Have I over been false to my word? Falsehood and prevarication arc alien to my nature. My actions ought to speak for themselves, but you listen not to them, but to those who misinterpret and distort them. That is a personal insult which I feel and resent. To be for ever misjudged, to have my repeated offers of friendship weighed and scrutinised with jealous, mistrustful eyes, taxes my patience severely. I have said time after time that I am a friend of England, and your press —or, at least, a considerable section of it —bids the people of England refuse my preferred hand, and insinuates that the other holds a dagger. How can I convince a nation against its will?

" It is commonly believed in England that throughout the South African war Germany was hostile to her. German opinion undoubtedly was hostile— hostile. The press was hostile; private opinion was hostile. But what of official Germany? Let my critics ask themselves what brought to a sudden stop, and, indeed, to absolute collapse, the European tour of the Boer delegates who were striving to obtain European intervention? They were feted in Holland; Franco gave them a rapturous welcome. They wished to come to Berlin, where the German people would have crowned them with .flowers. But when they asked me to receive them— refused. The agitation immediatelv died away, and the delegation returned empty-handed. Was that, 1 ask, the action of* a secret enemy •.' " Again, when the struggle was at its height, the German Government was invited by the Governments of France and Russia to join with them in calling upon England to put an end to the war. The moment had come, they said, not only to save the Boer Republic*, but also to humiliate England to the dust. What was my reply? I said that so far from Germany joining in any concerted European action to put pressure upon England and bring about her downfall, Germany would always keep aloof from politics that could bring her into complications with a Sea Power like England. Posterity will one day read the exact terms of the telegramnow in the archives of Windsor Castlein which I informed the Sovereign of England of the answer I had returned to the Powers which then sought to compass her fall. Englishmen who now insult me by doubting my word should know what were my actions in the hour of their adversity. ■ "Nor was that all. Just at the time of your Black Week, in the December of 1899, when disasters followed one another in rapid succession, I received a letter from Queen Victoria, my reverend grandmother, written in sorrow and affliction, and bearing manifest traces of the anxieties which were preying upon her mind and health. I at once returned a- sympathetic reply. Nay, I did 'more.' I bade one of my officers procure for me as exact an account as he could obtain of the number of combatants in South Africa on both sides, and of the actual position of the opposing forces. With the figures before me, I worked out what I considered to be the best plan of campaign under the circumstances, and submitted it to my general staff for their criticism. Then I despatched it to England, and that document, likewise, is among the State papers at Windsor Castle, awaiting the serenely impartial verdict of history. And, as a matter of curious coincidence, let me add that the plan which I formulated ran very much on the same lines as that which was actually adopted -by Lord Roberts, and carried by him into successful operation. Was that, I repeat, the act of ono who wished England ill? Let Englishmen be just and say! * "But you will say, what of the German navy? Surely, that is a menace to England ! Against whom but England are my squadrons being prepared? If England is not in the minds of those Germans who are bent on creating a powerful fleet, why is Germany asked to consent to such new and heavy burdens of taxation? My answer is clear. Germany is a young and growing Empire. She has a world-wide commerce, which is rapidly expanding, and to which the legitimate ambition of patriotic Germans refuse-; to assign any bounds. Germany must aave a powerful fleet to protect that commerce, and her manifold interests in even the, most distant seas. She expect* those interests to go on growing, and she must be able to champion them manfully in any quarter of the globe. Germany looks ahead. Her horizons stretch far away. She must be prepared for any eventualities in the Far East.

"Who can foresee what may take place in the Pacific in the days to come, days not so distant as some believe, but days, at any rate, for which all European Powers. with Far Eastern interests ought steadily to prepare ? Look at the accomplished rise of Japan; think of the possible national awakening of China; .and then judge of the vast . problems of the Pacific. Only those Powers which have great navies will be listened to with respect, when the future of the Pacific comes to be solved and if for that reason only Germany must have a powerful fleet. It may even be that England herself will be glad that Germany has a fleet when they speak together on "the same side .in the great debates of the future."