"I read your newspapers, and I read our own. I do not think our journalists, though they do their best, can fairly claim to excel yours in the contest of boastfulness and vulgar abuse. And as regards the utterances of responsible public men in our two countries, can you really contend that we Germans are more open to the reproach of vainglorious and undignified speech than the British? Our Kaiser denies having used the words, so often attributed to him in your press, about 'General French's contemptible little army,' and in Germany we believe his denial. But even if he did in fact utter this expression, is it not quite as seemly and restrained as references to 'digging rats out of a hole'—as applied to our gallant navy—or to that later announcement from the same quarter which was recently addressed to the Mayor of Scarborough about 'baby-killers'? Such expressions are regrettable, no doubt, but not of the first importance. They are a matter of temperament. An ill-balanced, or even a very highly-strung nature, will be betrayed into blunders of this sort more readily than the phlegmatic person, or one whose upbringing has been in circles where self-control is the rule of manners.
TRUST IN THE PEOPLE
"But what puzzles us Germans perhaps more than any of your other charges against us is, when you say that our rulers do not trust the people as the British Government does.
"You accuse our War Office of publishing accounts of imaginary victories to revive our drooping confidence, and of concealing actual disasters lest our country should fall into a panic of despondency. There was surely nothing imaginary about the fall of Liège, Namur, Maubeuge, Laon, or La Fere. The engagements before Metz, at Mons, Charleroi, and Amiens, the battles of Lodz and Lyck, were not inconsiderable successes for German arms, or at the very least for German generalship. The victory of Tannenberg was among the greatest in history, reckoning in numbers alone. Our government made no secret of the German retirement—retreat if you prefer the term—from the Marne to the Aisne, or of that other falling back after the first attempt on Warsaw. Naturally they laid less emphasis on reverses than on conquests, but what government has ever acted otherwise? Certainly not the French, or the Russian, or your own. And what actual disasters have we concealed? In what respect, as regards the conduct of this war, have we, the German people, been trusted less than yours?
"I am especially interested, I confess, as a student of British politics, in this matter of 'trusting the people.' All your great writers have led me to believe that here lies the essential difference between your system and ours, and that the great superiority of yours to ours is demonstrated in the confidence which your statesmen never hesitate to place in the wisdom, fortitude, and patriotism of the people. Frankly, I do not understand it. Trust must surely have some esoteric meaning when applied to your populace which foreigners are unable to apprehend. I can discover no other sense in your phrase about 'trusting the people,' than that they are trusted not to find out their politicians. It certainly cannot be believed that you trust your people to hear the truth; for if so why has your government practised so rigorous an economy of this virtue, doling it out very much as we have lately been doing with our wheat and potatoes?
THE BRITISH PRESS BUREAU
"Has your government not concealed actual disaster—concealed it from their own people, though from no one else; for all the world was on the broad grin? Everybody knew of your misfortune save a certain large portion of the British public. The motive of your government could not have been to hide it away from the Germans, or the Austrians, or from neutrals, for the illustrated papers all over the globe, even in your own colonies, contained pictures reproduced from photographs of the occurrence. It was only possible to muzzle the press and blindfold the people of the United Kingdom, and these things your government did; acting no doubt very wisely.
"Again after the great German victory over the Russians at Tannenberg in September last, an official bulletin of simple and conspicuous candour was published at Petrograd which confirmed in most of the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Why did your Press Bureau during the heavy fighting from the middle of October to the middle of November persist in maintaining that 'the British are still gaining ground.' The British resistance from the beginning to the end of the four weeks' battle round Ypres is not likely to be forgotten by our German soldiers, still less to be belittled by them. It was surely a great enough feat of arms to bear the light of truth. But. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .