and in the safeguards against those acts of violence which have
occurred at times, under Turkish rule, is taken care of by the
agreements mentioned above. And this is the second interest which
Germany has in this whole affair. It is less direct, but is dictated
by humanity.

The rest of the preliminary stipulations consists--I will not say of
phrases, for it is an official paper--but it has no bearing on our
present discussion.

With these explanations I have answered to the best of my ability the
first part of the interpellation concerning the present state of
affairs in the Orient, and I fear, gentlemen, that I have said nothing
new to any one of you.

The other parts of the question refer to the position which Germany
has taken or intends to take in view of the now existing conditions
and innovations.

As to the position which we have already taken I cannot now give you
any information, for officially we have been in possession of the
papers to which I have referred only a very short while, I may say
literally only since this very morning. What we knew beforehand was in
general agreement with these papers, but not of a nature to make
official steps possible. It consisted of private communications for
which we were indebted to the courtesy of other governments.

Official steps, therefore, have not yet been taken, and would be
premature in view of the conference, which I hope is at hand. All this
information will then be available and we shall be in a position to
exchange opinions concerning these matters. Any alterations,
therefore, of the stipulations of 1856 will have to be sanctioned. If
they should not be, the result would not necessarily be another war,
but a condition of affairs which all the powers of Europe, I think,
have good cause to avoid. I am almost tempted to call it making a
morass of matters. Let us assume that no agreement about what has to
be done can be reached in the conference, and that the powers who have
a chief interest in opposing the Russian stipulations should say: "At
the present moment it does not suit us to go to war about these
questions, but we are not in accord with your agreements, and we
reserve our decision"--would not that establish a condition of affairs
which cannot be agreeable even to Russia? The Russian policy rightly
says, "We are not desirous of exposing ourselves to the necessity of a
Turkish campaign every ten or twenty years, for it is exhausting,
strenuous, and e