The German naval policy according to the Dutch newspaper Het nieuws van den dag: kleine courant dated 31 March 1909

According to a tiding dated Berlin 29 March informed the German Chancellor (1) the members of the Reichstag what the results were of the discussions with England dealing with the naval shipbuilding. He referred to what was said during the meeting of the commission on 23 March dealing with the range and costs of the naval programmes. German and British authorities spoke with each other without doing any concessions. However the British never made a proposal which could have resulted in official negotiations. Both cabinets didn’t believe in a naval arms race between both countries. The German shipbuilding programme was public known and nothing was hide and there were no intentions to speed up the shipbuilding, apparently caused this statement quite what commotion in the Reichstag at the ‘right side‘! All rumours which claimed the opposite were false. Not earlier as autumn 1912 as dedicated by law were 13 large new ships included 3 protected cruisers completed.

Dealing with the world wide thoughts about disarmament in the last years thought the German cabinet that an increase of naval shipbuilding would fail if there were no international standards and limits for maximum tonnage and so on. An opinion again by the ‘right side’ in the Reichstag welcomed.

Note
1. This must be Prince Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin von Bülow (3 May 1849-28 October 1929), Chancellor 16 October 1900-13 July 1909. He had to resign when the parliament was against imposing of the inheritance taxes which was necessary to finance the naval shipbuilding. He was succeeded by Theobald Theodor Alfred von Bethmann Hollweg (29 November 1856 Hohenfinow - 1 January 1921 Hohenfinow), Chancellor 14 July 1909-13 July 1917 and who tried to stop the naval arms race between Germany and England by an agreement but did not succeeded mainly as a result of the opposition of the German minister of navy Von Tirpitz. Alfred von Tirpitz (19 March 1849 Küstrin-6 March 1930 Ebenhausen), grand admiral and between 6 June 1897 (active) and 5 March 1916 secretary of state and in fact the founder of the German Imperial Navy.