question was, how to get rid of it.

I have already referred to the visit I paid to the Emperor at Berlin in
the autumn of 1906. He invited me to a review which he held of his
troops there, and in the course of it rode up to the carriage in which I
was seated and said, "A splendid machine I have in this army, Mr.
Haldane; now isn't it so? And what could I do without it, situated as I
am between the Russians and the French? But the French are your
allies--are they not? So I beg pardon."

I shook my head and smiled deprecatingly, and replied that, were I in
his Majesty's place, I should in any case feel safe from attack with the
possession of this machine, and that for my own part I enjoyed being
behind it much more than if I had to be in front of it.

Next day, when at the Schloss, he talked to me fully and cordially. What
follows I extract from the record I made after the conversation in my
diaries, which were kept by desire of King Edward, and which were
printed by the Government on my return to London.

He spoke of the Anglo-French Entente. He said that it would be wrong to
infer that he had any critical thought about our entente with France. On
the contrary he believed that it might even facilitate good relations
between France and Germany. He wished for these good relations, and was
taking steps through gentlemen of high position in France to obtain
them. Not one inch more of French territory would he ever covet. Alsace
and Lorraine originally had been German, and now even the least German
of the two, Lorraine, because it preferred a monarchy to a republic, was
welcoming him enthusiastically whenever he went there. That he should
have gone to Tangier, where both English and French welcomed him, was