those who would be willing to see their own Government make a radical
advance in the directions in question who can honestly attack the German
Government. As one of those who believe that peaceable procedure may and
can, and, if civilization is to be preserved, must be substituted for war,
I have a right to express my own condemnation of the German Government,
and I unhesitatingly do so. But I do not infer that therefore Germany was
all the time working up to an aggressive war. It is interesting, in this
connection, to note the testimony given by Sir Edwin Pears to the desire
for good relations between Great Britain and Germany felt and expressed
later by the same Baron Marschall von Bieberstein who was so unyielding
in 1907 on the question of arbitration. When he came to take up the post
of German Ambassador to Great Britain, Sir Edwin reports him as saying:--

I have long wanted to be Ambassador to England, because, as you know,
for years I have considered it a misfortune to the world that our two
countries are not really in harmony. I consider that I am here as a man
with a mission, my mission being to bring about a real understanding
between our two nations.

On this Sir Edwin comments (1915):--

I unhesitatingly add that I am convinced he was sincere in what he said.
Of that I have no doubt.[4]

It must, in fact, be recognized that in the present state of international
relations, the general suspicion and the imminent danger, it requires more
imagination and faith than most public men possess, and more idealism than
most nations have shown themselves to be capable of, to take any radical
step towards reorganization. The armed peace, as we have so often had to
insist, perpetuates itself by the mistrust which it establishes.