that we did not in the least misinterpret their recent progress, nor
would he misinterpret our resolve to maintain, for purely defensive
purposes, our navy at a Two-Power standard. Some day, I said, there
might be rivalry, but I thought we might assume that, if it ever
happened, it would not be for many years, and that our policy for the
present was strongly for Free Trade, so that the more Germany exported
to Great Britain and British possessions, the more we should export in
exchange to them.

He expressed himself pleased that I should say this, and added that he
was confident that a couple of years' interchange of friendly
communications in this spirit would produce a great development, and
perhaps lead for both of us to pleasant relations with other Powers
also.

There were during this visit in 1906 other conversations of which a
record was preserved, but I have referred to the most important, and I
will only mention, in concluding my account of these days in Berlin in
September, 1906, the talk I had with the Foreign Minister, Herr von
Tschirsky, afterward the German Ambassador at Vienna before the war,
and reported as having been a fomenter of the Austrian outbreak against
Serbia. He may have been anti-Slav and anti-Russian, but I did not find
him, in the long conversation we had in 1906, otherwise than sensible as
regards France.

I explained that my business in Berlin was merely with War Office
matters, and, even as regards these, quite unofficial.

He said that there had been much tendency to misinterpret in both
countries, but that things were now better. I might take it that our
precision about the Entente with France, and our desire to rest firmly
on the arrangement we had made, were understood in Germany, and that it
was realized that we were not likely to be able to build up anything
with his own country which did not rest on this basis. But he thought,
and the Emperor agreed, that the Entente was no hindrance to all that
was necessary between Germany and England, which was not an alliance but
a thoroughly good business understanding. Some day we might come into
conflict, if care were not taken; but if care was taken, there was no
need of apprehension.

I said that I believed this to be Sir Edward Grey's view also, and that
he was anxious to communicate with the German Government beforehand
whenever there was a chance of German interests being touched.

He went on to speak of the approaching Hague Co