rendered it vital for us to be able to protect ourselves on the seas.
Germany was quite free to do as she pleased, but so were we, and we
should probably lay down two keels for every one which she added to her
program. The initiative in slackening competition was really not with
us, but with Germany. Any agreement for settling our differences and
introducing a new spirit into the relations of the two nations would be
bones without flesh if Germany began by fresh shipbuilding, and so
forced us to do twice as much. Indeed, the world would laugh at such an
agreement, and our people would think that we had been fooled. I did not
myself take that view, because I thought that the mere fact of an
agreement was valuable. But the Emperor would see that the public would
attach very little importance to his action unless the agreement largely
modified what it believed to be his shipbuilding program.

We then discussed the proposal of the German Admiralty for the new
program. Admiral von Tirpitz struggled for it. I insisted that
fundamental modification was essential if better relations were to
ensue. The tone was friendly, but I felt that I was up against the
crucial part of my task. The admiral wanted us to enter into some
understanding about our own shipbuilding. He thought the Two-Power
standard a hard one for Germany, and, indeed, Germany could not make any
admission about it.

I said it was not matter for admission. They were free and so were we,
and we must for the sake of our safety remain so. The idea then occurred
to us that, as we should never agree about it, we should avoid trying to
define a standard proportion in any general agreement that we might come
to, and, indeed, say nothing in it about shipbuilding; but that the
Emperor should announce to the German public that the agreement on
general questions, if we should have concluded one, had entirely