owers of the King, both that of
making laws and of administering them, have long ago been taken by the
people from the King and entrusted by them to a parliament, the
majority of whom, called the Government, represent the majority of the
electing voters. In the case of Germany the folk have surrendered some
of what an Englishman would term their "liberties," for example, the
right to govern, to the King, to be used for the common good; whereas
in the case of England, the people do not think it needful to
surrender any of their liberties, least of all the government of their
country, in order to attain the same end.

Thus, while the German Emperor and the German folk have the same aims
as the English King and the English people, the common weal and the
fair fame of their respective countries, the two monarchs and the two
peoples have agreed on almost contrary ways of trying to secure them.

The political system of Germany has had to be sketched introductorily
as for the Englishman, a necessary preliminary to an understanding of
the German Emperor's character and policy. One of the most important
results of the character and policy is the state of Anglo-German
relations; and the writer is convinced that if the character and
policy were better and more generally known there would be no
estrangement between the two countries, but, much more probably,
mutual respect and mutual good-will.

With the growth of this knowledge, the writer is tempted to believe,
would cease a delusion that appears to exist in the minds, or rather
the imaginations, of two great peoples, the delusion that the highest
national interests of both are fundamentally irreconcilable, and that
the policies of their Governments are fundamentally opposed.

It seems indeed as though neither in England nor in Germany has the
least attention been paid to the astonishing growth of commerce
between the countries or to the repeated declarations made through a
long series of years by the respective Governments on their countries'
behalf. The growth in commerce needs no statistics to prove it, for it
is a matter of everyday observation and comment. The English
Government declares it a vital necessity for an insular Power like
Great Britain, with colonies and duties appertaining to their
possession in all, and the most distant, parts of the world, to have a
navy twice as powerful as that of any other possibly hostile Power.
The ordinary German immediately cries ou