So
long as all these titles and powers lay in weak hands, the dangers of
Turkish policy, if not the anxieties it created, might be disregarded.
But today the military strength of Turkey is firmly established and it
is supported by another tremendous Power. Russia and France have never
committed an act of graver imprudence than to allow these two forces to
unite. Germany, Germany, ever and ever greater! The German song is no
longer a dead letter.
It was by guile that simulated liberal and democratic ideas, that
Bismarck prepared public opinion in the German Confederation for union
with Prussia. We, too, believed in the liberalism of Germans and of
Bismarck before 1870, and herein we proved ourselves to be just as
easily gullible as French socialists are to-day, who believe in the
genuine internationalism of German socialists.
For those whose interest lies in this direction, the Imperial
Statistical Bureau of Berlin provides information of an astounding
kind. Germany's exports in 1896 reached the value of 3754 millions of
marks. German exports to England and her colonies amounted to 808
million marks, whilst England and her colonies supplied Germany with
produce to the amount of 931 million marks. [19]
Henceforth William II knows that he has at his command the tools with
which to bite into England, industrially and commercially. He has
already had a large bite, and he looks forward to eating up proud
Albion, slowly but surely.
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