Up to this moment I had found my friend unusually reticent on international politics, even for a German diplomat, but his palpable relief at the turn things had taken over Morocco seemed to have the effect of loosening his hitherto well-bitted tongue.
‘Frankly,’ he said, ‘I am whole-heartedly glad to hear this news, even though, as a German, the dénouement is a very humiliating one. But for a long time I have been afraid that this periodic waving of a lighted torch over such a powder-magazine as Europe has become would cause an explosion. It will have to come if—if “someone” continues to scatter sparks in the future as he has done in the past. Please don’t understand me as intimating that Germany would not render a good account of herself in such an event (you may be sure that her enemies would have some terrible surprises in store for them); but the folly of the thing lies in the fact that we are already on our way to win by “peaceful penetration” all that the most successful war could give us. But if we should fight a war and chance to lose it—nay, even if it should result in more or less of a draw—Germany will never again have such an opportunity for a commercial—and through that, for a political—conquest of the world as she has enjoyed for the last two or three decades, and as she will continue to enjoy so long, but only so long, as we can keep at peace. That is why I deplore so deeply the fact that we have such⸺’ He checked the half-spoken German expletive that had leapt to the tip of his tongue and concluded with ‘that we are not under a safer and saner leadership.’
Very similar views of the Kaiser’s foreign policy I found were held by many outstanding figures among what I have called the German ‘industrialists.’ In this class I would include the heads of the great shipping companies and all of the important manufactories save only those, like Krupps, which were engaged in turning out war supplies. Herr Ballin was, I am assured, one of those who watched the development of the Kaiser’s insidiously ruthless policy with the gravest misgivings, and it is a German shipper only a shade less powerful than the head of the Hamburg-Amerika line that I am about to quote in this connection. I had met this gentleman more or less casually at several points during his tour of the Far East, but it was not until we chanced to be spending the same week-end at the Peak Hotel, Hongkong, that we had any chance to exchange views.
‘How are German trade prospects in the East?’ I asked him one evening as we sat over after-dinner coffee and cigars on the veranda of the hotel.
‘Colossal, simply colossal,’ was the reply. ‘Quite beyond anything I had hoped to find. Will you please take a look at this,’ and he took from his pocket and unfolded a little publication called ‘The Daily Consular Reports,’ published by the American State Department at Washington. Turning to a report written by the American Consul-General at Hongkong, he pointed to a table of figures preceded by a paragraph of comment. I have not the exact figures in mind at this moment, but their purport was to show the remarkable manner in which Germany’s share of Hongkong’s trade had increased until it was finally greater than that of Great Britain itself.
‘That is the one most significant thing I have observed on my whole tour,’ he said. ‘To fully appreciate the weight of it, you must consider that not only is Hongkong a British port, but that it is also a port whose principal, almost its only, raison d’être was commercial. And now what do we see? To-day—on the strength of the official figures of the representative of a nation that specialises in figures—Germany has 60 per cent. of all its trade. And next year it will have more, and still more the year after. What do you think of that?’
‘I think, in the first place,’ I replied, ‘that it seems rather effectually to dispose of Germany’s contention that she is not enjoying the “freedom of the seas”; and, in the second place, that it would appear to be a remarkable tribute to the efficacy of Emperor William’s welt-politik.’
The latter was a ‘bait’ I had often used successfully before under similar circumstances, and in this instance the ‘rise’ was sharp and clean. Indeed, I think he was rather glad to avail himself of the excuse to avoid the ‘freedom of the seas’ issue.
‘Emperor William’s welt-politik!’ he fairly shouted, grasping the arms of his long reclining chair in his anger. ‘Emperor William’s welt-politik is the worst, almost the one, menace to the continuance of our commercial triumphs. We have done what we have in spite of, not because of, this kind of welt-politik. What is more, it is the one thing that threatens to bring all our achievements to nought. Yes, not only to check our advance, but even to put us back so far that we may never be able to regain the place we hold to-day, to say nothing of the one we might attain to in the course of another decade of peace.