CRAFTY WILHELM.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14667, 22 March 1918, Page 2

CRAFTY WILHELM.

NEW JJEAR TALK WITH GERARD.

'JAPANESE; .HORDES" IN MEXICO

Lonpon, Feb. 26. -ue London "Times" has published the .first instalment of .a new book on Germany by Mr .Gerard^ former American Ambassador "to Germany. In this Mr Gerard gives his impressions of .the Kaiser and the workings of absolute monarchical rule. To illustrate the Kaiser's craft Mr Gerard reveals an at a New Year's reception in 1914, when the Kaiser excited the curiosity of other diplomats by conversing the longest with'Mr Gerard and the Turkish Ami dor.

rassa "What the Kaiser said to me," Mr Gerard remarks, "shows his subtlety. 'x^e subject the Kaiser talked to me at length about was what he called Japan's designs on the United States. He warned me that Mexico was full of Japanese spies and an army of Japanese colonels. "He also spoke about France, saying that he had made every effort to make up with Prance, but that the French refused to meet his overtures, and he would not try again to heal the breach, between France and Germany. "Little did I know then, the purpose

at- the back of that conversation, but ifc i« now clear that the Emperor wished to have the Government of the United States /persuaded, through me, that h« was really trying to keep Europe at peace, and that the responsibility for what was going.to happen would be oil France.

"But the reference to Japan and the alleged hostility "against the United States on the part of the fanciful hordes of Japanese in Mexico made me wonder at the time. There were many evidoicee subsequent to that New tear s Day, reception, of an attempt to alienate the United States from Japan. As the climax, clarifying what the JLmperor • had in mind, came the famous Zimmerman Note. Plotting and intriguing ior power and mastery—such is the business of absolute rulers which is to-day the thing, as Dr Wilson calls jt, which brought the American people taco to face with Kaiserism."