th wrote to Lord Tweedmouth. On grounds of
discretion, to the observance of which both the sender and
receiver of a private letter are equally entitled, I am not
in a position to lay the text of the letter before you, and
I add that I regret exceedingly that I cannot do so. The
letter could be signed by any one of us, by any sincere
friend of good relations between Germany and England (hear,
hear). The letter, gentlemen, was in form and substance a
private one, and at the same time its contents were of a
political nature. The one fact does not exclude the other;
and the letter of a sovereign, an imperial letter, does not,
from the fact that it deals with political questions, become
an act of State ('Very true,' on the Right).

"This is not--and deputy Count Kanitz yesterday gave
appropriate instances in support--the first political letter
a sovereign has written, and our Kaiser is not the first
sovereign who has addressed to foreign statesmen letters of
a political character which are not subject to control. The
matter here concerns a right of action which all sovereigns
claim and which, in the case of our Kaiser also, no one has
a right to limit. How his Majesty proposes to make use of
this right we can confidently leave to the imperial sense of
duty. It is a gross, in no way justifiable
misrepresentation, to assert that his Majesty's letter to
Lord Tweedmouth amounts to an attempt to influence the
Minister responsible for the naval budget in the interests
of Germany, or that it denotes a secret interference in the
internal affairs of the British Empire. Our Kaiser is the
last person to believe that the patriotism of an English
Minister would suffer him to accept advice from a foreign
country as to the drawing up of the English naval budget
('Quite right,' hear, hear). What is true of English
statesmen is true also of the leading statesmen of every
country which lays claim to respect for its independence
('Very true'). In questions of defence of one's own country
every people rejects foreign interference and is guided only
by considerations bearing on its own security and its own
needs ('Quite right'). Of this right to self-judgment and
self-defence Germany also makes use when she builds a fleet
to secure the necessary prote