I bid you a hearty welcome to our Fatherland and our capital! Two years ago I sent you forth to carry out your task in the far East, and could only hope that God would give you His protection and bring the work to a successful issue. The joyous and enthusiastic reception which all classes in my home city, Berlin, give you is a testimony to the loving interest which our entire people have in the completion of the task which you had set yourself.
But this reception has a still deeper significance. It is an unambiguous indication which proves how deeply the people have come to understand the need of strengthening our sea power. The German people is of one mind with its princes and its Emperor in the feeling that in its powerful development it must set up a new boundary post and create a great fleet which will correspond to its needs.
Just as Emperor William the Great created the weapon by whose help we became again black, white, and red, so the German people is now lending its efforts to forging the weapon through which, God willing and in all eternity, both here and in foreign countries, it will remain black, white, and red.
On your return you find a little lad[29] in the arms of your faithful wife. As sponsor for the growth of our young fleet may you see him grow up to full maturity under the protection of God! Hurrah!
The opening of the Elbe-Trave Canal took place at Lübeck in the presence of the Emperor. He again took up the question of the development of the German Empire.
On this day I congratulate the city of Lübeck most heartily. First of all I offer my heartiest thanks for the wonderful reception which you prepared for me. I have seen in the attitude and the faces of the citizens how joyously their hearts are moved to-day; for they know that I, too, take a lively interest in all that now moves them. May the canal which they have carried through with their irresistible Hanseatic activity not fall short in any way of their expectations, and I am convinced that it will not do so. You see, as you look upon the completed work, how significant it is that a united German Empire now exists. Its past glories Lübeck owed to the German Emperors, and its present glory it owes to the German Empire, so I hope that everywhere in the empire and among the people the conviction may grow that through the re-establishment and strengthening of the German Empire we are now called upon to carry through those old tasks which could not be accomplished formerly and which were rendered impossible through the unfortunate lack of union of our ancestors.