BACK-STAIRS INFLUENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9042, 7 March 1908, Page 5

BACK-STAIRS INFLUENCE.

UNWARRANTABLE ACTION OF GERMAN EMPEROR.

DYNASTIC COMPLIMENTS DANGEROUS.

STRICTURES BY "THE TIMES."

Received March 6, 10.40 p.m. LONDON, March'G. "The Times" states that the Kaiser has written to Lord Tweedmouth, First Lord of the Admiralty, relative to .British and German naval policy, and that a reply has been despatched. If affirmed the Kaiser's letter amounts to an attempt to influence, in German interests, the Minister responsible for the naval estimates. "The Times" urges that the Kaiser's letter should be made public, and insists that if the complimentary title of Admiral in the British Navy can be held to warrant a foreign potentate interfering with our domestic affairs by secret appeals to the head of the department onwhich the national safety depends, it becomes an urgent necessity to abolish dynastic compliments. "The Times" asserts that if His Majesty King Edward had similarly communicated with the head of the German Naval and Military Department there would be a universal cry of anger from one end of Germany to the other, and the world would hold that Germany was within her rights. If the Kaiser had anything to say to Britain tending to a fair understanding about armaments, he could use the regular official channels for communicating with the British Government. No private relations with members of the Government can excuse a departure from regular methods, and recourse to private influence, to which some men are amtnable when corning from an exalted quarter.