t carefully respecting the lawful rights
acquired by other Powers, _to develop economic relations with China,
which, year by year, will become more important, and to secure to
German subjects their full share in the activities directed towards
opening the Far East to Europe, from the economic point of view_."

Nor is the influence acquired by William II and his subjects in the
Ottoman Empire, emphasised by this same Speech from the Throne, of a
nature to reassure England with regard to her projects in the East. In
the Near, as in the Far, East she sees herself being supplanted by
Germany, and this by methods identical with her own, against which,
therefore, she fights more disadvantageously than against France and
Russia, more foolishly chivalrous.

William II, who had replied with insolent sharpness to a legitimate
claim advanced by a certain princeling of the Confederated States--the
Regent of Lippe-Detmold, Count Ernest von Lippe-Biesterfeld, has had
occasion to see that public opinion severely condemns his unjustifiable
action. The Confederated Sovereigns and Princes perceive therein a
menace to themselves, and have rallied energetically in defence of one
of their number. The masses, seeing an insignificant princeling
oppressed and threatened by the biggest of them, have sided with the
weaker. On his return from Jerusalem, William found the situation
extremely strained, and he endeavoured to relieve it by concessions of
various kinds. None of them, however, were regarded as adequate.
Thereupon, with the suppleness which costs him so little when it is a
question of sacrificing his most devoted and valuable servant, the
Emperor, King of Prussia, sacrificed Herr von Lucanus, the head of his
private household, an almost legendary personage who had had a hand in
every important act of William's life. It was he who carried the
Imperial ultimatum to Von Bismarck and escaped unhurt from the hands of
the infuriated giant.

Herr von Lucanus had not been sacrificed to the violent sarcasms of the
Chancellor after his reconciliation with William II; he seemed to be
unassailable until, simply for having addressed a few improper lines,
at the Emperor's dictation, to a minor prince, he is removed from the
anonymous post which was one of the occult powers of Potsdam. The
august Confederates may consider themselves satisfied.

[1] _La Nouvelle Revue_, January 15, 1898, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[2] _La Nouvelle R