" hile we are awaiting the documents of the next World War, and since the relationship between the diplomatic mind and the press has not changed much, it is relevant to use the ample material existing in the British Documents on the Origins of the War' to show the analysis and use of the press by diplomats. Public opinion in such a study-deified, perverted, or maligned-becomes a King Charles' head. It is, as J. A. Spender says, "highly important that those who handle foreign affairs, whether ministers, officials, or journalists, should know their way about the European press world and underworld." Many times the bogey of public opinion, frequently made synonymous with the press (but probably less by diplomats than by historians), was dragged as a herring across the trail when policies already had been determined. Never does the diplomat scoff too long at the latent mischievousness of the press, nor can he always free himself from the atmosphere created by newspaper polemics; but his professionalism is something of a shield. It is not entirely obvious, as 0. J. Hale asserts in Germany and the Diplomatic Revolution, that "the influence of the English press on diplomatic policy was a steady, constant, and determining factor." Sir Eyre Crowe's minute of February 21, I907, may serve as an introduction. Lord Sanderson had written a memorandum