bring to bear on this work special
endowments and qualities. May the co-operation, which I believe to be
now beginning, become closer and closer. Of this I am sure, the more
wide and unselfish the nations and the groups questions make her
supreme purposes of their policies, the more will friction disappear
and the sooner will the relations that are normal and healthy
reappear. Something of this good work has now come into existence
between our two peoples. We must see to it that the chance of growth
is given."[5]

[Footnote 5: This passage from a letter of Lord Haldane is quoted in
the original English by Professor Schiemann and is here copied
verbatim.--TRANSLATOR.]

It is difficult to believe in the sincerity of the sentiments here
expressed, when we consider that Lord Haldane belonged to the inner
circle of the Cabinet and therefore must have known the secret
chess-moves of Grey's policy. Furthermore, he did not resign, as did
three other members of the Cabinet--Lord Morley, Burns, and Charles
Trevelyan--when, on Aug. 4, Sir Edward's false game was shown up and
when treaties grew out of those "conversations" and alliances out of
those ententes, which had until then existed under counterfeit names.
Even as late as June 13 Sir Edward Grey denied that he had entered
into any binding obligations. Six weeks after that, however, England
confronted Germany with the fait accompli of a life-and-death
struggle. Grey had consciously uttered a falsehood before Parliament,
and, as was ascertained from a Russian source, had not only accepted a
Russian proposal to conclude a naval agreement, but had expressly
given his approval that the deliberations regarding the effectuation
of this agreement should be participated in by the Naval Staffs of
both countries. In so doing he expressly counted upon a war between
the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, and upon the complete
alliance of England. England, at the proper time, was to send
merchantmen to Russian ports on the Baltic Sea for the purpose of
landing Russian troops in Pomerania, and to send as many ships to the
Mediterranean Sea as seemed necessary to insure the ascendency of
France. With the help of French money it was intended to overthrow the
Ministry of Rodoslawow in Bulgaria and, with the assistance of the
Russophile, Malinow, to win over that country to the combination,
which was to attack Austria in the rear. All this, which took place
before the assassination of F