II-GERMANY WITHOUT BISMARCK.

AMONG those few hundred persons who suggest and form public opinion in the chief centres of European intelligence it has been assumed, and correctly so, in all probability, that the retirement of Otto Leopold von Bismarck from the post of power and trust which he has occupied in the Prussian Monarchy for nearly thirty years, and in the German Empire ever since its creation, was significant of a radical change in the domestic and foreign policy of the realm which he may be said to have founded, consolidated, and heretofore governed. Cabinet Ministers and Court officials of high rank, party leaders and permanent UnderSecretaries of State, parliamentary magnates and financial potentates-in short, all the wire-pullers who contribute to the manufacture of contemporary history-appear to be at one in their appreciation of the meaning and purport of this important incident. From the character of the differences that have occurred during the past six months between Prince Bismarck and the third German Emperor, from the circumstance that those differences have one and all been of the young Kaiser's origination, and from the inflexibility with which His Majesty has adhered to a line of action rendering the ex-Chancellor's resignation inevitable, it has been inferred that William II., on or shortly after succeeding to his inheritance of rule, made up his mind definitively to emancipate himself from political tutelage, to govern his realms in conformity with his own judgment and inspiration, and, above all, to be his own Prime Minister.

Although those who have been well acquainted-among them, Prince Bismarck himself-with William of Hohenzollern during his youth and early manhood, have been for a considerable number of years aware that he is a person of strong will, vehement energy, and fervid temperament, highly imaginative, self-confident, and impatient of control, they appear to have been unprepared for his recent assertion of sovereign independence, and to have expected that his vigorous individuality would have expressed itself otherwise than by shaking off the leadingstrings transmitted to him by his father and grandfather, and by wresting the helm of the State-ship from the mighty hand that

had swayed it without intermission throughout the two preceding reigns. The anticipations of these competent authorities, as far as the successor of Frederick the Noble was concerned, pointed to military enterprise rather than to an initiative in politico-economical and politico-social reforms, avowedly undertaken with a view to maintaining and consolidating the peace of Europe.

Before his accession to the throne, Prince William of Hohenzollern had been chiefly known to his fellow countrymen. as an eager student of military science, an accomplished practical soldier, and an ardent German Chauvinist. He was credited with a high ambition to emulate the brilliant feats of generalship performed by his great ancestor, Frederick II., and with a passionate desire to achieve distinction at the head of his army-the finest marching and fighting machine in the world— as a successful strategist and victorious commander. According to some accounts, his hatred of France and the French was intense and insurmountable; others attributed to him a no less cordial detestation of Russia and the Russians. Moreover, his dislike of this country and its institutions, as well as of his English kinsfolk, was professed by "those who knew" to be a matter of public notoriety. On similar authority he was charged with disobedience to his father and undutifulness to his mother. It was believed that he had absolutely submitted himself to the influence and guidance of Prince Bismarck, his political instructor and sole confidant, whose hostility towards his illustrious parents was an established fact of thirty years' standing. His reverence and admiration for his grandfather, unquestionably deep and enthusiastic, were said to extend to the venerable Emperor's political principles and governmental views, which, being based upon the Divine Right of Kings and the dogmas of military discipline, were perilously reactionary, and grotesquely out of keeping with the spirit of the present age. Such, graphically sketched by skilful word-painters claiming an accurate knowledge of their subject, was the picture of William II., German Emperor and King of Prussia, shortly after those exalted dignities devolved upon him by the premature decease of his heroic sire, "the noblest Hohenzollern of them all," on June 15th, 1888, not yet two years ago.

That picture, far from being an accurate likeness, or even a clever caricature, has turned out a mere daub, vicious alike in drawing and colour, faulty in conception and incorrect in

execution. Within twenty-two months of his accession to sovereign power, Europe has found itself compelled to recognise in the son of Frederick and Victoria a trustworthy guarantor of its peace, a high-souled philanthropist, and a sincere friend to the working man. His first act, at the expiration of his term of strict family mourning, was to reassure France, who believed him bent upon her conquest, and was panic-stricken by the expectation of another German invasion, headed by an ambitious and French-hating young soldier on his probation, from whom she could not hope for mercy. His second was to hold out the right hand of good-fellowship to his cousin Alexander Alexandreivich, and, by re-establishing an entente cordiale between the two great military empires of the North, to arrest the development of the Franco-Russian Alliance. Having conciliated his two puissant and unfriendly neighbours, and checked a hostile combination fraught with menace to New Germany, the young Emperor proceeded to consolidate the Triple Alliance-by which the tranquillity of the Continent has been maintained throughout the past twelve years-by ratifying in person, at the Hofburg and the Quirinal, the confidential engagements entered into by his venerable grandsire with the sovereigns of Austria-Hungary and United Italy. During his sojourn in Rome he rendered King Humbert one of those services for which even monarchs are grateful, by conclusively dispelling the Pontiff's illusions in relation to the possibility of resuscitating the Temporal Power. Through this master-stroke of policy he established himself firmly in the good graces of the Italian nation, and greatly increased his popularity throughout seven-eighths of the Fatherland. A few months later he paid this country a visit, the results of which have been manifestly felicitous. All previous misunderstandings between his English kinsfolk and himself were cleared away, and a cordiality was imparted to Anglo-German relations which had been lacking to them ever since the death of the Prince Consort.

The general astonishment aroused by His Majesty's frank and emphatic avowal of his heartfelt desire to stand well with the British nation had scarcely subsided when William II., by stepping to the front of the political stage in the character of an enterprising and intelligent reformer, gave his detractors to understand that his stock of surprises was by no means exhausted. The attitude which he unexpectedly assumed towards a hardly-used class of operatives, à propos of the great

colliery strikes in his narrower Fatherland, left no doubt as to his intention to vindicate the rights of labour against the might of capital, as far as in him lay. This new departure was closely followed by his promulgation of the two famous Rescripts, signifying his desire that the existent laws regulating labour in Germany should be remodelled in a manner beneficial to the industrial classes, and intimating that he had resolved to convoke an International Congress for the purpose of inquiring into the life-conditions of the European working man and of suggesting legislation for their improvement. That His Majesty, in taking this important step, was inspired by the ideas of his father-set forth in the impressive manifesto addressed "To My People," by Frederick the Noble four days after his accession rather than by those embodied in the Workmen's Insurance Bill reluctantly sanctioned by William I.—a Bismarckian experiment in the direction of State Socialism, qualified by the Imperial author of the "February Rescripts" as insufficient, impractical, and platonic-is plainly manifest. The issue of these edicts led immediately to the public disclosure of the young Kaiser's unsuspected resolve to turn. over a new leaf, as far as the home policy of Germany was concerned, and to sever himself from the predominant statesman in whom the first German Emperor had reposed an implicit and inexpugnable confidence. As the question mooted in the Rescripts was one directly concerning the Ministry of Commerce, the portfolio of which was at that time held by Prince Bismarck, His Majesty submitted the documents in question to the Chancellor's inspection, and pro formâ requested him to express his opinion thereupon. In reply the Prince observed. that "a younger man than himself would be better able to carry out the Imperial wishes," and tendered his resignation as Minister of Commerce, which the Emperor accepted on the spot. This incident was the first outward and visible sign of the "little rift within the lute" which was destined to widen, six weeks later, into an irreparable breach between Wilhelm von Hohenzollern and Otto von Bismarck.

Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte; and the Kaiser, having taken that momentous "first step," lost little time in completing his deliverance from a tutelage which, it may reasonably be assumed, had become intolerably irksome to him. The means of emancipation lay ready to his hand. Under the reign of William I., Prince Bismarck had arrogated to himself an

almost complete and exclusive control over the affairs of the State-with the exception of those relating to the army-and in such sort that information of importance emanating from German official sources could only reach the aged Emperor through the medium of his Chancellor. Departmental and even Ministerial reports were addressed to the latter, who conveyed or did not convey their purport to His Majesty, as he thought fit; or, if it became the indisputable duty of any particular Minister or exalted functionary-such as the President of a provincial government, for instance-to report direct to the Kaiser, it was no less imperative upon him, before asking for an audience, to consult Prince Bismarck as to the nature and form of the "Vortrag" or exposition of facts to be brought to the Imperial cognizance. William I. aged rapidly after his miraculous recovery from the injuries inflicted on him by Dr. Nobiling in June 1878. Deep as was his devotion to duty, he found it convenient, in and after his eighty-first year, to shift a part of his burden of responsibility to the stalwart shoulders of his trusted adviser, who was at least as willing to relieve him as he himself was to be relieved. In military matters alone the old Emperor retained his interest to the last, and upon them he concentrated what attention he could command. Bismarck, for his part, judiciously abstained from meddling with them. The War Minister and Chief of the General Staff made their reports, verbally or in writing, direct to the Head of the Army, who, however, was wholly and solely dependent upon the Reichskanzler for tidings relating to home and foreign affairs. This quasi-monopoly of authority and information by His Highness necessarily continued in force during the ninety-nine days' reign of Frederick III., a dying man when he came to the throne, with barely strength enough to formulate his profession of faith as a ruler of men, to communicate to his subjects the noble programme of reform which, had he been spared, he would undoubtedly have carried out, and to impart to his successor the inestimable advice that William II. is now carrying out with characteristic thoroughness. The young Emperor was doubtless cognizant of this particular development of Bismarckian predominance during his grandfather's latter years, and probably saw nothing particularly objectionable in it, for he then professed to regard the Chancellor as the wisest of living men, and, being himself rigorously excluded from any participation in State business, was in all likelihood of opinion that Bismarck was the ablest and fittest person to transact it.

VOL. VII.-NO. XLI.

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