of diplomacy and to believe that a great deal of this carefully nurtured secrecy was merely a trick of the trade. Bismarck expressed himself in the following language on diplomatic literature: "'For the most part it is nothing but paper and ink. If you wanted to utilize it for historical purposes, you could not get anything worth having out of it. I believe it is the rule to allow historians to consult the Foreign Office archives at the expiration of thirty years (after the date of despatches). They might be permitted to examine them much sooner, for the despatches and letters, when they contain any information at all, are quite unintelligible to those unacquainted with the persons and relations treated of in them." In reporting this statement, Labouchere observes: "If all foreign office telegrams were published they would be curious reading."[1] He also re-
- ↑ He writes that when "I was an attaché" at Stockholm, the present Queen, the Duchess of Ostrogotha, had a baby, and a telegram came from the Foreign Office desiring that Her Majesty's congratulations should be offered, and that she should be informed how the mother and child were. The Minister was away, so off I went to the Palace to convey the message and to inquire about the health of the pair. A solemn gentleman received me. I informed him of my orders, and requested him to say what I was to reply. 'Her Royal Highness,' he replied, 'is as well as can be expected, but His Royal Highness is suffering a little internally, and it is believed that this is due to the fact of the milk of his nurse having been slightly sour last evening.' I telegraphed this to the Foreign Office."
