THE
GERMAN
GOVERNMENT
COMPLAINS
447
the
Moroccan
Question,
and no
French statesman
had
raised the
alarm.
Suddenly
a
contingent
declaration
of war was
flung
across
the
North
Sea
by
the leader of the
British
Radicals.
It
was
regarded
in
Germany
as a
wanton
interference
in
a
matter
which
concerned
France
and
Germany
alone,
and
as
convincing
evidence
that
Great
Britain
was
as
eager
to thwart the
colonial and
commercial ambitions
of
Germany
as she was
to
encourage
those
of
France.
The
reply
of
the
German Government to
Sir
Edward
Grey's
queries
in
the interview
of
July
21st
had been
despatched
before the
text
of the Chancellor's
speech
reached
Berlin;
but orders were at
once sent
to
Count
Wolff-Metternich,
in
presenting
the
reply,
to
complain
of
the Mansion
House
declaration.
"On
July 24th,
three
days
after the
speech
of
the Chancellor
of
the
Exchequer,
the German
Ambassador
came to see me. He informed me
that the
German intention in
sending
a
ship
to
Agadir
had
not
changed.
Not
a man
had
been
landed
there. The German
Government
regretted
the credence
which was
given
to the insinuations as
to the intentions
of
Germany
that came
from
hostile
quarters.
Germany
had
never
thought
of
creating
a naval
port
on the coast of
Morocco,
and never would think
of
it. Such ideas
were hallucinations. As to the
negotiations
with
France,
if
the German
demands were rather
high,
his
Government were
ready
to
make concessions
in
Morocco
as well as in
colonial
matters;
but the
chauvinistic tone
of the French Press and a
part
of
the British
Press,
menacing
Germany
with the interference
of
the friends of
France,
did not
tend towards
a
settlement.
I said that I
was
likely
to
be asked in Parliament
what was
happening
at
Agadir,
and I
should like to know
whether
I
might
say
that the German Government
had
informed
me
that not a man had
been landed.
The Ambassador asked me to make no
public
statement
with
regard
to this communication
until
he
had had
time to
communicate
with
his
Government.
The next
day, July
25th,
he
came
to
see
me
again,
and
told me that the information
that he
had
given
me on the
previous
day
was
confidential,
and that the German
Government could not consent
to its
being
used
in
Parliament,
in
view
of the
speech
of the
Chancellor
of the
Exchequer.
He then made to me
in
regard
to that
speech
a communication
which has now been
published by
the
German
Government,
and
which I
need not
read
in full to
the
House,
because
it
has been in the Press
here
already, except
to
say
about it that that
communication was
a
strong
criticism
upon
the effect of the
speech
upon
the
Press
rather
than
upon
the substance
of
the
speech
itself. The
communication,
however,
was
exceedingly
stiff
in
tone,
and I felt it
necessary
to
say
at
once
that
as the
speech
of
the Chancellor
of
the
Exchequer
seemed to me to
give
no cause
for
complaint,
the fact that it had created
surprise
in
Germany
was in
itself a
justification
of the
speech,
for it could
not have created
surprise
unless there had been some
tendency
to think
that
we
might
be
disregarded.
The
speech
had
not
claimed
anything
except
that
we
were entitled
to be