peror claimed the credit of having formulated the plans for the military operations in the Boer War on the identical lines as
those actually adopted and successfully carried out by Lord Roberts. The interview was published in the official government
organs and by the Wolff Bureau and it stands as onemore inter esting illustration of the inability of even the German Emperor to square the circle.10 The patronizing attitude toward England 1908, harmonized little with the general condemnation of Eng land in the interview granted the previous July and the obvious
discord undoubtedly explains the insistence of the German For eign Office that the July interview granted to W . B . Hale should
not be published in December. The objectionable interview may not be suppressed , but it may be so edited , and its tone so tempered by “ the man up stairs” to make it conform to his own ideas, that it loses all semblance to
its original form , and the edited interview in its turn brings con fusion to the historian Positive misinformation may at times be purposely and con sciously given interviewers by the officials interviewed. “ The trouble is not to get ' fake' stories,” writes an exasperated news
paper man , “ but to detect them and keep them out of print. not worth the paper they are written on . They are of identical
value with the maid 's 'Not at home to unwelcome visitors.” 11 Historians and reporters suffer alike from these official denials of information given interviewers , and it is difficult for them to
understand the reason for deliberate falsification since in the end the truth will be known. 10 C . Gauss, The German Emperor, pp. 267– 273; W . H . Dawson , The German Empire, II, 346 –349. The text is given in D . J. Hill, Impressions
of the Kaiser, pp. 329- 335, and the explanation of Prince von Bülow made in the Reichstag , pp . 335 - 340 . 11 New York Evening Post, December 8 , 1908 .
It seems possible to class with the repudiated interview that given in New York and attributed to Lord Northcliffe by the Daily Mail, but given by H . W . Steed of The Times . The most important result of a situation that
threate engagepress,I
threatened international complications seemed to be the cancelling of a
dinner engagement for Lord Northcliffe at the British Embassy in Washing
ton . - Daily press, July , 1921.
APER
THE NEWSP
RIAN
