ch imposed themselves
irresistibly on all men's attention as the century drew to its close,
impelled him to more energetic action. A student of the history of
other countries as well as his own, and a watchful observer of the
tendencies of the time, he felt that the young Empire was incomplete
as long as it was without a navy corresponding in size and power to
its army, the organization of which had been completed. With its army
alone he regarded the Empire as a colossus, no doubt, but a colossus
standing on one leg, and was convinced that if the Empire was to be a
success it must have a navy at least able to withstand attack by any
of his continental neighbours and potential enemies.

On ascending the throne the Emperor was naturally most occupied with
the internal situation of his new inheritance, and spent a good deal
of his time railing at Social Democracy and the press, explaining the
nature of his Heaven-appointed kingship, and rousing his somewhat
lethargic people to a sense of their power and possibilities; but he
found a moment in 1891 to write under a photograph he gave the
retiring Postmaster-General Stephan:

"The world, at the end of the nineteenth century, stands
under the star of commerce; commerce breaks down the
barriers which separate the peoples and creates new
relations between the nations."

Then the idea slumbered in his mind for a few years, while he
continued to make his own people restless with criticism, perhaps
deserved, of their sluggishness, their pessimism, their party strife,
and foreign peoples equally restless with phrases like "_nemo me
impune lacessit_"; until the idea came suddenly to utterance in 1897,
when, on seeing the figure of Neptune on a monument to the Emperor
William, he broke out: "The trident should be in our grip!" From this
time, and for the next few years, the growth of the navy may be said
to have never long been far from his thoughts. In sending Prince Henry
to Kiautschau at the close of 1898 he made the remark that "imperial
power means sea power, and sea power and imperial power are dependent
on each other." Nine months afterwards at Stettin he used a phrase
alone sufficient to keep his name alive in history: "Our future lies
on the water!"

At Hamburg, in 1899, he laid emphasis on the changes in the world
which justify a naval policy one can see now was almost inevitable.

"A strong German fleet," he said, "is a thing of which we stand in