ialists by promising to lower the Customs dues if
they returned with peace. I do not want the dues, as you know, but
that has no connection with Stockholm, "Sozie" and peace.

I was at an Austrian Cabinet Council lately and gave the
death-blow to the Customs dues--but I felt rather like Daniel in
the lions' den when I did it; N. and E. in particular were very
indignant. The only one who entirely shares my standpoint beside
Trnka is the Prime Minister Clam.

Consequently, this contention that they have been deprived of the
octroi owing to my love for the "Sozies" angers them still more,
but the contention is false.

You, my dear friend, are doubly wrong. In the first place, we
shall be forced to have Socialist policy after the war whether it
is welcome or not, and I consider it extremely important to
prepare the Social Democrats for it. Socialist policy is the
valve we are bound to open in order to let off the superfluous
steam, otherwise the boiler will burst. In the second place, none
of us Ministers can take upon ourselves the false pretence of
using _sabotage_ with regard to peace. The nations may perhaps
tolerate the tortures of war for a while, but only if they
understand and have the conviction that it cannot be
otherwise--that a _vis major_ predominates; in other words, that
peace can fail owing to circumstances, but not owing to the ill
will or stupidity of the Ministers.

The German-Bohemian Deputy, K.H. Wolf, made a scene when the
speech from the throne was read in the "Burg"; he declared that we
were mad and would have to account for it to the delegation, and
made many other equally pleasant remarks, but he had also come to
a wrong conclusion about the Customs dues and Stockholm.

You are quite right in saying that it is no concern of Germany's
what we do in the interior. But they have not attempted the
slightest interference with the dues. If they are afraid of an
anti-German rate of exchange and, therefore, are in favour of the
dues, we are to a certain extent to blame. The Berlin people are
always afraid of treachery. When a vessel answers the starboard
helm it means she turns to the right, and in order to check this
movement the steersman must put the helm to larboard as the only
way to keep a straight course--he must hold out. Such is the case
of statecraft in Vienna--it is always carried out of the course of
the Allianc