432 



The Review of Reviews. 



X or ember I, 190S. 



estimate how powerful, how inspiring, and how sus- 

 taining was the aid which, despite her ill-health, 

 she always rendered h'er husband. She knew him 

 best, and believed in him much more than he be- 

 lieved in himself. All the world now knows his 

 sterling qualities and his supreme capacity for 

 leadership. But she was the first, and for a long 

 time the only one who knew what was in her hus- 

 band, and it is well that she was not called hence 

 before she heard her own estimate of his abilities 

 confirmed by the unanimous voice of the whole 

 nation. 



The chief political event of last 



The King and month was the meeting of the King 



the Kaiser. and the Kaiser at the Castle of 



Cronberg. The uncle and the 

 nephew fell out in 1 902 ; the breach was made worse 

 in 1904; and last year, when I was in Berlin, I 

 found even in the highest places the most astound- 

 ing reports current as to the extent to which the 

 misunderstanding between the King and the Kaiser 

 was supposed to have jeopardised the peace of 

 Europe. Some fictions are as mischievous as facts 

 if they are believed to be facts, and it is unfortu- 

 nately quite true that many German publicists and 

 officials, otherwise quite sane and well-informed, 

 honestly believed that the King was constantly urg- 

 ing his Ministers to adopt a policy towards Ger- 

 manv intended to precipitate war. It is to be 

 hoped that the meeting at Cronberg will finally dis- 

 pel this monstrous delusion. Even if the King had 

 been much more put oat with the Kaiser than he 

 ever was, it would not have deflected the course of 

 British policy, which, whatever party is in power, is 

 steadily bent upon peace. Xow that the two Sove- 

 reigns have publicly kissed and made friends be- 

 fore all the world, it is to be hoped that we shall 

 hear no more of the malign influence his Majesty 

 was supposed to exert on British policy. Of course, 

 the fairy tales in which Mr. Edward Dicey, for ex- 

 ample, pleases himself by imagining about a cut- 

 and-dried Anglo-German agreement having been 

 drawn up and signed by King and Kaiser are fairy 

 tales, and nothing more. The revival of the British 

 Monarchy of late years is a notable political fact, 

 but, thank Heaven, it has not gone so far as to 

 render it possible for the King to be his own 

 Foreign Minister. 



„,^ „ ^ The King, with the Permanent 



What Happened Under-Secretary of our Foreign 

 Cronberg. Office and the British Ambassador 



at Berlin, had a good talk with the 

 Kaiser, who was accompanied by his Foreign Minis- 

 ter, Herr von Tscherschsky. They talked over 

 everything and settled nothing, excepting to agree 

 that " no friction whate\er exists anywhere between 

 England and Germany — it is only rivalry." It is 

 officially declared that the meeting left satisfactory 



impressions on both sides. According to Mr. Bash- 

 ford, usually well informed on such matters, the 

 King before leaving Cronberg expressed himself 

 with much emphasis as follows : — " I am very much 

 satisfied with my visit, which has afforded me great 

 pleasure, and the Emperor has been very kind to 

 me." The Kaiser, according to the same authority, 

 assured his Ministers that the results of his meet- 

 ing with the King had given him every possible 

 satisfaction, and that it had been a source of great 

 happiness to him to have met his uncle again. In 

 direct confirmation of his mutual satisfaction, it is 

 remarked that the King was in the best of spirits 

 on his arrival at Marienbad. where his cure is pro- 

 gressing most satisfactorily. But as for a signed 

 and sealed entente, it is sufficient to quote the state- 

 ment reported by Mr. Bashford as having been 

 made by a competent German authority : — " There 

 never was any intention of suggesting an entente be- 

 tween us at Friedrichshof. We have no points of 

 difference requiring settlement, so there would be 

 no basis for an entente such as there was between 

 England and France, and such as there is between 

 England and Russia." 



Mr. Haldane. our Minister of War, 

 Mr. Haldane at who is rightly hailed by the Ger- 

 Berlin. man press as a firm friend of Ger- 



many, is at present the guest of 

 the Emperor at Berlin. Instead of fooling away 

 his time like some of his predecessors by donning 

 a military uniform and watching military manceuv- 

 res. the lessons of which he could better derive 

 from the reports of his military attaches, Mr. Hal- 

 dane is devoting himself to the study of the organi- 

 sation of the German military staff and to the great 

 militarv establishments which are to be found at the 

 capital. The Kaiser has ordered that every facility 

 shall be given him for his studies, and it is to be 

 hoped that the War Office will profit by the wa\ in 

 which Mr. Haldane is spending his " holiday." 

 Some foolish Opposition papers have been spread- 

 ing baseless rumours concerning Mr. Haldane's 

 "impending resignation." Mr. Haldane is not 

 going to resign. He has, of all his colleagues in 

 the Cabinet, gained most in public estimation since 

 the Government was formed, and he is about the 

 last man in the world to abandon a position in 

 which he finds everything his heart desires — an in- 

 finite variety of tremendously hard work and a 

 boundless field in which to render yeoman's service 

 to the Empire. 



Among the subjects which the 



The Russian Sovereigns discussed at Cronberg 



Revolution. the possible developments of the 



Russian crisis naturally found a 



place. On that subject Kaisers and Kings can see 



no farther than meaner mortals. The future is 



