WHITE] DIPLOMATIC SERVICE OF UNITED STATES I21I 
favorably to them. As a rule, they were allowed to return to the 
German Confederation freely and to remain there for two years, 
with the understanding that they should then make choice be- 
tween the country of their birth and the country of their adoption. 
The whole sysem was thus made perfectly intelligible, preventing 
any further trouble, so long as Germany remained what it then was. 
Still more than that, as the great war between Germany and France 
drew on, Mr. Bancroft, being still on the ground, watching public 
affairs, saw that here was the opportunity to extend the treaties still 
further. This he did, and at last brought them upon an admirable 
footing, laying the foundations for permanent good will between 
the new Empire and the United States. He did this as no one 
could have done it without his experience in public affairs gen- 
erally, and in German affairs specially, and certainly as no one could 
have done it unless upon the ground, carefully watching the progress 
of events, and skillfully making the most of them in behalf of his 
country. I may say, in passing, that the most amazing tour de force 
in his negotiations was his persuading both Prince Bismarck and 
himself that one basis of his claim for a better treaty was a striking 
similarity between the new constitution of the North German Con- 
federation and the constitution of the United States. Never was 
a conviction less founded or more opportune. 
Still another advantage of having a resident representative is 
that of creating an atmosphere in which the germs of international 
trouble are kept from developing, and in which troublesome ques- 
tions between his own nation and that to which he is accredited 
may be easily settled. The French have a well-worn proverb, but 
a proverb which wears as well to-day as ever: “ Absent people are 
always inthe wrong.” (“Les absents ont toujours tort.’) English 
speaking peoples have another, much to the same effect: “ The man 
I don’t like is the man I don’t know.” 
A representative of the United States, fitted for his place, at any 
important capital, finds, at various receptions, evening gatherings, 
festivities, official and unofficial, the ministers and leading men in 
the Government to which he is accredited, men of influence in 
executive departments, in parliament, in the press, and in social 
circles; and in this atmosphere learns beforehand of matters likely 
to create trouble, and is able to avert difficulty. By a word in the 
proper quarter, he can thus easily take the life out of whole flocks 
of canards let loose into the political atmosphere by men engaged in 
stock-jobbing or sensation mongering. So, too, a minister frequently 
receives, from this friend in public service or that friend in society, 
