THE KAISER AND THE ENGLISH

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9467, 9 June 1909, Page 6

THE KAISER AND THE ENGLISH

An interview is reported to have taken place between the Kaiser and a representative of Shipping Truth. The Kaiser is reported to have said: —“Ton English make the one big mistake of always imagining my people are seeking to spoil year trade supremacy on the seas. All my people want is ,a share of it—of course, as large a one as possible. That I and my people are sincerely desirous of having nothing but amicable relationship with the English peoples may not be believed in your country, but we are used to being misunderstood. It is strange, and a source of great regret to me, that notwithstanding all my protestations and the official > statements of my Ministers, it should still he possible that your people shonld cherish so deeply hostile an attitude to my people in their trade relations. Why shonld your people imagine that, by some Divine right,' the oversea carrying trade of the world has been specially entrusted to them, to the exclusion ol all other nations in general, and the Fatherland in par tioular? Am I not to be excused for thinking that your shipowners’ hatred of \ our great mercantile marine is solely based on fear of losing still more of the world’s carrying, owing to my people's better knowledge of how to conduct it, their better equipped ships, and their oohtentedness to supply every transit facility at a minimum of cost? You ask me to what I attribute the universal hostility of your ship-owners to my people’s competition. All competition is disliked by those who have to meet -it; but your shipowners are angry because the days of 10, 20 and SOjyears ago are gone from them for ever. Then they made great profits—extortionate profits. Why, you English people ought to thank my people for the very competition of which you complain. It has reduced transit costs to you and all other nations as they would never otherwise have been reduced. But’ you English, you are selfish, and suspicious, and you make the mistake of not so encouraging your shipping men by State assistance, and by honouring yonr patriotic ones, so that there shall be some other aim for them than mere money gain. Yon see I am generous, for in tolling you this, I fceil yon the secret of the development of my people’s mercantile power on the seas.”