TEUTOPHOBIA.

PRINCE BULOW ON ENGLAND. "TOO SENSITIVE AND CREDULOUS." LONDON, September 18. For years now —back to almost any time since the Franco-Prussian warEngland and Germany have been trying to find out what is wrong with themselves, whether it is Anglophobia in the one, or Teutophobia in the other that is the cause of perennial irritation' in both. The problem has puzzled them so much that quite lately both have come to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong' at all, or if anything, that it only affects the other. . ■' _■ Mr Balfour, Mr Lloyd George, the Socialist party, and everybody, that counts for anything in England have expressed their : : belief : that war between England and Germany is so improbable and inconceivable as to be ruled out of the question. Herr Bebel, for Germany, while holding the same opinion, takes the stand that the preparations which have been made by each of the countries out of fear for the other have created such a tension that it is quite possible for war to break out without much further notice. At the same time he believes that there will be very strong forces to prevent such an event. The Kaiser this week told the world that the peace would never, please God, he disturbed; but he spoke more particularly to reconciled Alsace and Lorraine. THE PRESIDING ORACLE. On top of all these statements comes the most important pronouncement of all,, that of Prince von Bulow, the Imperial German Chancellor. He has been regarded for years as the man through whom must come in the end the manifestations of the Emperor's desire, whether for peace or war, and the statement which he has made in conversation with a correspondent of the Standard is consequently of supreme importance. Stripped of verbiage and • irrelevancy, the statement is a plain, straightforward Prince Bulow deplored at the outset the exaggerated importance attached by many of-the news-reading public to remarks . made by highly-placed personages, without proper regard being paid to the circumstances under which they are made. He looks upon the animosity between England and Germany as little short of a species of madness which, if persisted in, can only lead to endless mischief to both countries for the sole benefit of the tertii gaudentes. He is most anxious to do all in his power to put an end to it, but in this respect his power is necessarily much restricted. With regard to naval aggression, it would be much'* more excusable if Germany were the one to fear attack by the other. GERMANY'S DARK BACKGROUND. He says:—"You (the English) have never known an invasion since the time of William the Conqueror, and I can assure you, not for the first time, and not as German Chancellor, but as one gentleman to another, that nobody of any sense or influence in Germany dreams of picking a quarrel with England, much less of such an insane idea as invading England. But for ue Germans there is far more tangible reason for apprehension, through out exposed geographical position, let alone our dark historical background. It is only a hundred years ago that this very spot on which we stand formed a part of a French department. The towns of Bremen, Lubeck and Hamburg were 'nos bonnes villes de Bremen, Lubeck et Harnbourg,' under the sway of the French Empire. Eleven young Prussian officers were tried by court-martial and shot at Wesel for defending their own country. In other words, our people have still a vivid historical consciousness of national disaster and disgrace, against a recurrence of which our army is our only safeguard."

THE VOLATILE ENGLISH. The Chancellor goes on to say that Germans were accustomed to associate with the French character such outbursts of excitability as had lately appeared in the British pres6, but since the war of 1870 the French had been much more sensible in such matters. The spirit of suspicion and hate disclosed in a certain article in the Quarterly Review was hardly less intense in its animosity towards Germany than sundry diatribes of Emile de Giradin and Edmond About just prior to the outbreak of the. war with France in 1870. "It is quite a revelation to me," continues the Chaicellor, "to see a steady and sterling people like the English give way to such sentiments as are evident here, and wo can only hope and trust to the political genius, the common sense of the English people, to rectify this morbid feeling of their own independent volition." FORGETS THE HEREROS. Prince Bulow, continuing his criticism of the article in the Quarterly Review, says he was astonished to find in a high-class and influential periodical such uncalled-for hostility, misrepresentation, and ignorance of German affairs. As for the German army being the terror of Europe, he says:—"Germany, you well know, is the only one of the Great Powers which has waged no war during the last 37 years. In the course of this period Italv has been at war with Abyssinia, the United States with Spain, Russia with the Japanese, France in Tunis, Tonkin and Madagascar. England, I need scarcely refer to in detail. But, somehow or other, people take upon themselves to make assertions with regard to us which they would not dream of making in the case of other countries." The Chancellor forgets all about Germany's deplorable and protracted campaign against the Hereros, and Germany's part in the sack of Pekin by the Allies. THE GRABBING OF TERRITORY. A certain German writer, Heinrickvon Treitschke, is said to have stated that the British Empire had been created largely at the expense of Germany. Prince "Bulow considers this nonsense — not only since Treitschke is a warm admirer of the English people, but in face of the bald fact that "England is the one country which possesses no territory whatever that once belonged to GerI many, particularly now that the little island of Heligoland has come back to Germany. The British Empire, on the other hand, includes possessions which once did belong to several other countries, such as France, Holland, Portugal and Spain. Far from Treitschke having been imbued with hatred of England, the very reverse is the case."

THE NAVAL BUGBEAR. But the statement that most roused the ridicule of the Chancellor was one that in a certain number of years England will only have a slight margin of naval supremacy over Germany. "Yes," rejoined the distinguished German with impatience, "in 200 years, and not even then." It is untrue, the Chancellor says, that the German navy is being increased with accelerated rapidity. All the battleships now in course of construction arc merely substitute, though naturally of a superior class, for the antiquated ships of the Sachsen and Siegfried which never deserved the name of battleships. It ie untrue that new and larger naval programmes are being brought forward. The cruisers which appear in the schedule of 1906 were already provided for in 1900, but for special reasons their construction was delayed. In reducing the life of a battjeship, Germany had only followed other nations in meeting the demands of modern technical conditions. It had, moreover, been stated in the House of Commons that the British Admiralty estimated the life of a battleship at not more than 15 years. As for the complaints that had been mad© of the strength of the- German Flottonverein, Prince Bulow said it must not be forgotten that the mercantile marine of Germany was the second largest in the world, and as German interests beyond the seas amounted to £800,000,000 there was naturally a strong desire to

have a' liavy proportionately strong to protect her commerce. The Germans in-; clined naturally to the formation of leagues on the slightest provocation for all manner of purposes, and if one thing more than another could have contributed towards the flourishing of the Flottenverein, it was the constant nagging attention it had received at the hands of the English press. WOULD WAR BE POPULAR? Prince .Bulow declares emphatically that there is no foundation whatever for the statement that German hostility to England becomes stronger by compression, and that a war with England would be the most popular war Germany ever waged.' He cannot understand why the English take seriously certain repre- : hensible cartoons in German comic papers, while the infinitely more coarse productions of Le Rire, which ie sold openly on the French boulevards, are disregarded. The late Sir William Harcourt, he said, personally expressed to Count. Herbert Bismarck the gratitude of England to his father"'for the loyal manner in which Germany had supported English arms.in Egypt. The last sentence marked by Prince Bulow in the article referred to was this: "Heedless Chauvinism will not avail England." And the Chancellor had written in blue pencil in the margin: "In dem ganzen lugen-ge.webe und chaos von blodsinn das einzige richtige" (The only correct statement in this mesh of falsehood and chaos of nonsense").