“Business has, indeed, improved in the meantime, but only very slightly, and much less than in Germany. This slight improvement, however, has not failed to give a fillip to the cause of Free Trade among the City men. If elections in the spring are regarded as likely, much will depend on the further development of trade. I must confess that I take a very pessimistic view as to the future of Great Britain in this respect. The British can really no longer compete with us, and if it were not for the large funds they have invested, and for the sums of money which reach the small mother-country from her great dominions, their saturated and conservative habits of life would soon make them a quantité négligeable as far as their competition with us in the world’s markets is concerned.
“Of course, their financial strength and their excellent system of foreign politics, in which they have now been trained for centuries, will always attract business to their country, the possession of which we shall always begrudge them (for is not envy one of the national characteristics of the German race?).”
Up to the summer of 1911 the feeling remained friendly. Early in July Ballin wrote:
“To-day the feeling, as far as the City is concerned, is thoroughly friendly towards Germany. The visit in the spring of the Kaiser and the Kaiserin, on the occasion of the unveiling of the monument to Queen Victoria, has created a most sympathetic impression—an impression which has been strengthened by the participation of the Crown Prince and Princess in the Coronation festivities. At present the Kaiser is actually one of the most popular persons in England, and the suggestion of bringing about an Anglo-German understanding is meeting with a great deal of approval from all sections of the population.”
However, this readiness to come to an understanding received a setback during the course of the year, when it was adversely affected by the new developments in the Morocco affair and by the dispatch of the Panther to Agadir, which led to fresh complications with France, and later also with Great Britain. The grievances of the latter found expression in a sharply worded speech by Lloyd George in July, 1911, the main argument of which was that Great Britain, in questions affecting her vital interests, could not allow herself to be treated as though she were non-existent. In Germany this pronouncement led to violent attacks on the part of the Conservative opposition against Herr v. Bethmann and against England, and it was the latter against whom Herr v. Heydebrand directed his quotation from Schiller, to the effect that a nation which did not stake her everything on her honour was deserving only of contempt. It is also well known that the outcome of the whole affair, as well as its sequel, the Franco-German Congo agreement, produced much indignation in Germany, where it was felt that the material results obtained were hardly worth the great display of force, and that it was still less worth while to be drifted into a big war in consequence of this incident.
The measure of the anxiety which was felt at that time in business and financial circles all over the world may be gauged by reading the following letter from Ballin to the Secretary of State, Herr v. Kiderlen-Wächter, in which it is necessary to read between the lines here and there.
“Baron Leopold de Rothschild has just sent me a wire from London in which he says that, on the strength of information he has received from the Paris Rothschilds, people there are greatly disappointed to see that the German answer—the details of which are still unknown there—leaves some important questions still unsolved. Public sentiment in the French capital, he says, is beginning to get excited, and it would be to the interest of everybody to settle matters as speedily as possible.
“I felt it my duty to draw your attention to this statement, and you may take it for what it is worth.
“I need not tell your Excellency that people here and, I suppose, all over Germany, are watching the progress of events with growing anxiety. In this respect, therefore, the desires of the German people seem identical with those of the French.
“It would also be presumptuous on my part to speak to your Excellency about the feeling in England and the British armaments, as the information you derive from your official sources is bound to be better still than that which I can obtain through my connexions.