"You will then find us ready to conclude an understanding with you, in order to ensure peace and to make an end, at least, to these continually recurring alarms of war, which are wearing out the nerves and the purse of the whole world. To this end let us call a conference. Meanwhile, no one is to increase the armaments they at present possess, let alone mobilize. But if you are not willing to give us a fair show peaceably, then we warn you to look out for trouble."
In my opinion, such a warning would not have had to be translated into action, for in due course things were bound to come your way by the very force of cause and effect. With a little skill and tact and insight (which traits, as you will probably admit, have hardly been outstanding features of German diplomacy since Bismarck), together with a little patience, everything you could reasonably ask would have been yours in the course of the next ten or fifteen years.
But if the Triple Entente had met a request in the nature of the foregoing with a non possumus, or had made no reasonably acceptable offer, and you, after final warning, had resorted to the arbitrament of war, your case would have worn a very different aspect from the present one. Many unprejudiced men amongst neutral people would have looked upon your view-points and conduct as not devoid of justification, instead of turning away with disgust from the sophistries of your writers, who seek to demonstrate that you poor innocent lambs were fallen upon in order to be dragged to the slaughterhouse.
As a matter of fact, however, it is my belief that such a declaration delivered by you to the Triple Entente, firm and determined in spirit and meaning, but friendly and persuasive in language, would have led not to war, but to a lasting understanding.
SUMMARY
To sum up:
1. Until ten years ago, England's relations with you were good—indeed more than good, as is shown, for instance, by the cession of Heligoland. If, as you assert, hate and envy and ill-will, because of Germany's phenomenal development, and of her increasing strength and push as a competitor in the markets of the world, had been the moving force in shaping England's attitude towards you, the motive for hostile conduct would have existed at that time just as at present.
As a matter of fact, England's sentiment towards Germany changed only with your aggressive programme of naval construction, and as a consequence of the manifestation in word, in writing and in deed, of certain alarming and menacing tendencies, to which, it is true, more significance and importance probably were attached abroad than in Germany itself—more, perhaps, than they deserved.
That programme England came to consider, naturally, as directed mainly against herself and as a serious menace to her most vital interests and to the conditions of her very existence.